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THE FAR AND NEAR. SERIES— NO. 8. 

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Entered at the Fost-Oj^ce, New York, as Second-Class Matter, 

A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


Romantic Career ef PRADO the Assassin. 


From Notes Communicated to a Friend on the Eve of His Execution. 


An Extraordinary Record of Crime in Many Lands — He 
was Reared in a Royal Palace. 


The Great Riddle which the French Police were Unable to Solve. 


By LOUIS BERARD. 



NEW YORK: 

STREET & SMITH, Publishers, 

31 Rose Htreet. 


Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1889, 

By Street & Smith, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 


PREFACE. 


Prado was a wonderful fellow/' said Chief Inspector 
Byrnes^ of the ISTew York police, recently, ^^and for crim- 
inal ingenuity and devilishness stands without a peer. I 
question whether cupidity lay at the foundation of his dia- 
bolical work, inclining to the belief that some great wrong 
worked on his mind and embittered him against the wealth- 
ier members of the class of women whom he selected as his 
victims. Certainly the opening chapters of the story would 
indicate as much. The fact that this recital of Prado^s 
crimes is made up frdm notes furnished by the man him- 
self makes it unusually interesting, and the splendidly writ- 
ten and graphically illustrated story will find a place in the 
scrap-book of every police detective in the country. 

I do not think a career like Prado^s in Paris could be 
possible in this city. Our police system is so different from 
that of Paris that we can weave a net about criminals much 
easier. We do not have to unreel miles of red tape before 
starting out on a hunt for criminals, but are at work with 
scores of detectives, aided by the entire force, if necessary, 
before a victim of murder is fairly cold. We seek motives, 
study the antecedents and acquaintances of the slain, and, 
following clew after clew, we make it so warm for an assassin 
that he seeks safety rather than a duplication of crime. 
Prado, however, was an assassin far above the average of 
men in intelligence and ingenuity, and gave evidence of 
having moved in high circles of society, and I should not 
be surprised if the story will make clear his identity to stu- 
dents of the ^Almanac de Gotha ." "" — Now York World, 



A SERVANT OF SATAN 


PEOLOeUE. 

Ifc was at Madrid, in the month of April, 1880, that I 
first made the acquaintance of the extraordinary man, who, 
under the pseudonym of -'Prado'" met his fate beneath 
the Paris guillotine. I had just driven back into 
town from witnessing the execution by the "garrote"" 
of the regicide Francisco Otero, and was in the act of 
stepping from my brougham, when suddenly the crowd 
assembled on the Puerto del Sol parted as if by magic to 
give place to a runaway carriage. I had barely time to 
note the frantic efforts of the coachman to stop the onward 
course of the frightened horses, when there was a terrible 
crash, and the victoria was shattered to splinters against 
one of the heavy posts on the square. The coachman, still 
clutching hold of the reins, was torn from the box, and 
dragged some hundred yards farther along the ground, be- 
fore the horses were stopped and he could be induced to 
release his hold of the ribbons. To the surprise of all the 
spectators, he escaped with a few bruises. His master, 
howcfver — the only other occupant of the carriage — was less 
fortunate. Hurled by the shock with considerable violence 
to the pavement, almost at my very feet, he remained un- 
conscious for some minutes. When at length he recovered 
his senses, and attempted to rise with my assistance, it was 
found that he had broken his ankle, and was unable to 
stand upright. Placing him in my trap, I drove him to 
the address which he gave me — a house in the^ Calle del 


8 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


Barquillo — and on our arrival there, assisted the door porter 
and some of the other servants to carry him up stairs to a 
very handsome suite of apartments on the second floor. On 
taking my departure, he overwhelmed me with thanks for 
what he was pleased to call my kindness, and entreated me 
to do him the favor of calling, handing me at the same time 
a card bearing the name of Comte Linska de Castillon. 

A couple of days later, happening to be in the neighbor- 
hood of the Qalle del Barquillo, I dropped in to see how he 
was getting on. He received me with the greatest cor- 
diality, and so interesting was his conversation that it was 
quite dark before I left the house. It turned out that he, 
too, had been present at the execution of the wretched 
Otero, and that he was on his way home when his horses 
became frightened and bolted. • After discussing all the 
horrible details of the death of the regicide, the conversa- 
tion took the direction of capital punishment in foreign 
countries — a theme about which he displayed the most 
wonderful knowledge. 

From the graphic manner in which he described the 
strange tortures and cruel methods of punishment practiced 
at the, courts of the native princes in India and China, it 
was evident that he was speaking of scenes which he had 
witnessed, and not from mere hearsay. He seemed equally 
well acquainted with the terrors of lynch law in the frontier- 
territories of the United States, and with the military exe- 
cutions of spies and deserters in warfare. In short, it be- 
came clear to me that he was a great traveler, and that he 
was as well acquainted with America and Asia as he was 
with the ins and outs of almost every capital in Europe. His 
French, his Spanish, his German, and his English, were 
all equally without a trace of foreign accent. His manners 
were perfect, and displayed unmistakable signs of birth 
and breeding. Although not above the ordinary stature, 
he was a man of very compact and muscular build. Dressed 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


9 


in the most perfect and quiet taste, his appearance, with- 
out being foppish, was one of great cMc and elegance. No 
trace of jewelry was to be seen about his person. His hands 
and feet were small and well shaped; his mustache was 
black, as were also his large and luminous eyes. His hair, 
slightly gray toward the temples, showed traces of age, or, 
perhaps, of a hard life. But the most remarkable thing 
about him was his smile, which seemed to light up his 
whole face, and which was singularly winning and frank. 
I confess I took a great fancy to the man, who at the time 
was exceedingly popular in Madrid society. He was to be 
seen in many of the most exclusive salons, was present at 
nearly all the ministerial and diplomatic receptions, and 
apparently enjoyed universal consideration. Our intimacy 
continued for about a couple of years, during the course of 
which I had the opportunity of rendering him one or two 
more slight services. Toward the end of 1882, I was 
obliged to leave Madrid rather suddenly, being summoned 
to Torquay by the dangerous illness of my mother, who is 
an English woman, and I did not return to Spain until 
several years later, when I found that Comte Linska de 
Castillon had meanwhile gone under — in a financial sense — 
and had disappeared from the surface. 

It is unnecessary to describe here the horror and conster- 
nation with which I learned that Prado, the man charged 
wifch numerous robberies and with the murder of the demi- 
mondaine, Marie Aguetant, was no other than my former 
friend, Comte Linska de Castillon. Of course, I made a 
point of attending the trial. I confess, however, that I had 
some difficulty in recognizing in the rather unprepossessing 
individual in the prisoners dock the once elegant viveur 
whom I had known at Madrid. His features had become 
somewhat bloated and coarse, as if by hard living, his dress 
was careless and untidy, his hair gray and his eyes heavy. 
It was only on the rare occasions when he smiled that his 


10 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


face resumed traces of its former appearance. Day after 
day I sat in court and listened to the evidence against him. 
The impression which the latter left on my mind was that, 
however guilty he undoubtedly had been of other crimes — 
possibly even of murder — he was, nevertheless, innocent of 
the death of Marie Aguetant, the charge on which he was 
executed. The crime was too brutal and too coarse in its 
method to have been perpetrated by his hand. Moreover, 
the evidence against him in the matter was not direct, but 
only circumstantial. Neither the jewelry nor the bonds 
which he was alleged to have stolen from the murdered 
woman have ever been discovered. Neither has the weapon 
with which the deed was committed been found, and the 
only evidence against him was that of two women, both of 
loose morals, and both of whom considered themselves to 
have been betrayed by him. The one, Eugenie Forrestier, 
a well-known femme galante, saw in the trial a means of 
advertising her charms, which she has succeeded in doing 
in a most profitable manner. The other, Mauricette Cou- 
rouneaii, the mother of his child, had fallen in love with a 
young German and was under promise to marry him as 
soon as ever the trial was completed, and Prado’s head 
had rolled into the basket of Monsieur de Paris.” 

Shortly after the sentence had been pronounced upon the 
man whom I had known as Comte Linska de Castillon” 
I visited him in his prison, and subsequently at his request 
called several times again to see him. He seemed very 
calm and collected. Death apparently had no terrors for 
him, and on one occasion he recalled the curious coincidence 
that our first meeting had been on our way home from the 
execution of the regicide Otero. The only thing which he 
seemed to dread was that his aged father — his one and 
solitary affection in the world — should learn of his disgrace. 
In answer to my repeated inquiries as to who his father was 
he invariably put me off with a smile, exclaiming, Demain, 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


11 


demainT (to-morrow). He appeared, however, to be filled 
with the most intense bitterness against the other members 
of his family, step-mother, half-brothers and sisters, who, 
he declared, had been the first cause of his estrangement 
from his father and of his own ruin. 


Although condemned criminals are never informed of the 



^^YOU WILL FIND BOTH IN THIS SEALED PACKET.'" 


date of their execution until a couple of hours before they 
are actually led to the scaffold, yet Prado," or Castillon " 
appeared to have an intuition of the imminence of his 
death. For two days before it took place, when I was 
about to take leave, after paying him one of my customary 
visits, he suddenly exclaimed: 


A SEKVANT OF SATAN. 


I may not see you again. It is possible that this may 
be our last interview. You are the only one of my former 
friends who has shown me the slightest kindness or sympa- 
thy in my trouble. It would be useless to thank you. I am 
perfectly aware that my whole record must appear repulsive 
to you, and that your conduct toward me has been 
prompted by pity more than by any other sentiment. 
Were you, however, to know my true story you would pity 
me even more.- The statements wdiich I made to M. 
Guillo, the Judge dTnstruction who examined me, were 
merely invented on the spur of the moment, for the pur- 
pose of showing him that my powers of imagination were, 
at any rate, as briliant as his own. 'No one, not even my 
lawyer, knows my real name or history. You will find 
both in this sealed packet. It contains some notes which I 
have jotted down while in prison, concerning my past 
career.'’^ 

As he said this he placed a bulky parcel in my hand. 

‘‘I want you, however, he continued, to promise me 
two things. The first is that you will not open the outer 
covering thereof until after my execution; the second, that 
you will make no mention or reference to the name inscribed 
on the inner envelope until you see the death of its possessor 
announced in the newspapers. It is the name of my poor 
old father. He is in failing health and can scarcely live 
much longer. When he passes away you are at liberty to 
break the seals and to use the information contained therein 
in any form you may think proper. The only object I have 
in now concealing my indentity is to spare the old gentle- 
man any unnecessary sorrow and disgrace.^' 

He uttered these last words rather sadly and paused for a 
few minutes before proceeding. 

With regard to the remainder of my family,^' said he at 
last, I am totally indifferent about their feelings in the 
matter,"'' 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


13 


^^One word more, my dear Berard/^ he continued. 
am anxious that these papers should some day or other be 
made known to the world. They will convince the public 
that at any rate I am innocent of the brutal murder for 
which I am about to suffer death. My crimes have been 
numerous; they have been committed in many different 
lands, and I have never hesitated to put people out of the 
way when I found them to be dangerous to my interests. 
But whatever I may have done has been accomplished with 
skill and delicacy. My misdeeds have been those of a man 
of birth, education, and breeding, whereas the slayer of 
Marie Aguetant was, as you will find out one of these days, 
but a mere vulgar criminal of low and coarse instincts, the 
scum indeed of a Levantine gutter. 

And now good-by my dear Berard. I rely on you to 
respect the wishes of a man who is about to disappear into 
Nirwana. You see/’ he added with a smile, I am some- 
thing of a Buddhist. ^ 

Almost involuntarily I grasped both his hands firmly in 
mine. I was deeply moved. All the powers of attraction 
which he had formerly exercised on me at Madrid came 
again to the surface, and it was he who gently pushed me 
out of the cell in order to cut short a painful scene. 

Two days later one of the most remarkable criminals of 
the age expiated his numerous crimes on the scaffold in the 
square in front of the Prison de la Grande Roquette. 

Late last night, when alone in my library, I broke the 
seals of the outer envelope of the parcel which he had con- 
fided to me. When I saw the name inscribed on the inner 
covering I started from my chair. It was a name of world- 
wide fame, one of the most brilliant in the ^‘Almanac de 
Gotha, and familiar in every court in Europe. However, 
mindful of my promise to the dead, I locked the package 
away in my safe. My curiosity, however, was not put to a 
very severe test, for about a week later the papers of every 


14 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


country in Europe announced the death of the statesman 
and soldier whose name figured on the cover of the parcel 
of documents. 

Without further delay I broke the seals of the inner 
wrapper. The whole night through and far on into the 
next day, I sat poring over the sheets of closely written 
manuscript — the confessions of the man who had been 
guillotined under the assumed name of Prado. They 
revealed an astounding career of crime and adventure in 
almost every corner of the globe, and thoroughly impressed 
me with the conviction that, however innocent he may have 
been of the murder of Marie Aguetant, yet he fully de- 
served the penalty which was finally meted out to him. Of 
scruples or of any notions of morality he had none, and so 
cold-blooded and repulsive is the cynicism which this ser- 
vant of Satan at times displays in the notes concerning his 
life which he placed at my disposal, I have been forced to 
use considerable discretion in editing them. While care- 
ful to reproduce all the facts contained in the manuscript, 
I have toned down a certain Zola-like realism of expression 
impossible to render in print, and have shaped the dis- 
jointed memoranda and jottings into a consecutive nar- 
rative. 

One word more before finally introducing the real Prado 
to the world. However great my desire to accede to the last 
wish of my former friend, I cannot bring myself to dis- 
close to the general public the real name of the unfortunate 
family to which he belonged. There are too many innocent 
members thereof who would be irretrievably injured by its 
disclosure. 

But the pseudonym which I have employed is so trans- 
parent, and the history of the great house in question so 
well known, that all who have any acquaintance of the 
inner ring of European society will have no difficulty in 
recognizing its identity, Louis Ber ard, 


A SERVANT OE SATAN. 


IS 


CHAPTER 1. 

A SECRET MARRIAGE, 

Count Frederick von Waldberg, who was tried and guil- 
lotined at Paris under the name of Prado, was born at 
Berlin in 1849 and was named after King Frederick 
William IV. of Prussia, who, together with Queen 
Flizabeth, was present at the christening and acted as 
sponsor. This somewhat exceptional distinction was due to 
the fact that the child^s father. Count Heinrich von Wald- 
beig, was not only one of the favorite aides-de-camp gen- 
erals of his majesty, but had also been a friend and com- 
panion of the monarch from his very boyhood. 

Although at the time the general had not yet achieved 
the great reputation as a statesman which he subsequently 
attained, yet he was already known throughout Europe as 
an ambassador of rare skill and diplomacy, and as one of 
the most influential personages of the Berlin Court. Mar- 
ried in 1847 to a princess of the reigning house of Kipper- 
Deutmolde, a woman of singular beauty, little Frederick 
was the first and only offspring of their union. The child 
was scarcely a year old when the mother died at Potsdam, 
after only a few days^ illness, leaving the whole of her for- 
tune in trust for the boy. The general was inconsolable, 
and so intense was his grief that for some days it was feared 
that his mind would give way. The very kindest sympathy 
was displayed by both the king and his consort, the latter in 
particular being deeply moved by the motherless condition 
of little Frederick. During the next three years the child 
spent much of his time in her majesty^s private apartments, 
both at Berlin and Potsdam, and, herself childless. Queen 


16 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


Elizabeth did her utmost to act the part of a mother to the 
pretty curly headed boy. 

After four years of widowhood the general became con- 
vinced that it was not ^^good for man to be alone/^ and cast 
his eyes about him in search of another wife. Greatly to 
the disgust of the beauties of the Prussian capital, who were 
only too ready to surrender their hands and their hearts to 
the high rank and station of Count von Waldberg, his choice 
fell on an ItaliafU lady, whose sole recommendation in his 
eyes was, as he publicly proclaimed to his friends, that she 
bore certain traces of resemblance tc nis dead princess. 

Several children were born of this second marriage, and, 
as usual in such cases, poor little Frederick suifered the 
ordinary fate of a step-child. The new Countess von Wald- 
berg could not bring herself to forgive the boy for being the 
heir to a large fortune, while her own children had nothing 
but a meager portion to which they could look forward. 
Moreover she was intensely jealous of the marked favor and 
interest which both the king and the queen displayed 
toward their godson whenever the family came to Berlin. 
As, however, the general spent the first ten years of his 
second marriage at the foreign capitals to which he was 
accredited as ambassador, Frederick but rarely saw his 
royal friends. His childhood was thoroughly embittered 
by the repellent attitude of his step-mother and of his half 
brothers and sisters toward him. His father, it is true, was 
always kind and affectionate; but engrossed by the cares 
and duties of his office, he often allowed whole days to pass 
without seeing his eldest son, whose time was wholly spent 
in the company of servants, grooms, and other inferiors. 

At the age of fifteen he was entered at the School of 
Cadets at Brandenburg, and while there was frequently de- 
tached to act as page of honor at the various court functions 
at Berlin and Potsdam. He was scarcely eighteen years old 
when he received his first commission as ensign in a regi- 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


17 


ment of the foot-guards. Queen Elizabeth making him a 
present of his first sword on the occasion. 

Frederick, in receipt of a handsome allowance from the 
trustees of his mother^s fortune, now entered on a course of 
the wildest dissipation. The fame of his exploits on several 
occasions reached the ears of the king, who kindly, but 
firmly, reproved the lad for his conduct, and urged him to 
remember what was due to names so honored as those of his 
father and his dead mother. Nothing, however, seemed to 
have any effect in checking the career of reckless and riot- 
ous extravagance on which he had embarked, and at length, 
after being subjected to numerous reprimands and sentences 
of arrest, he was punished by being transferred to a line 
regiment engaged in frontier duty on the Eussian border. 
His dismay at being thus exiled from the court and capital 
to the wilds of Prussian Poland was impossible to describe, 
and he bade farewell to his numerous friends of both sexes 
as if he had been banished for life to the mines of Siberia. 
The most painful parting of all was from a pretty little 
girl, whom he had taken from behind the counter of 
Louise’s famous fiower shop, and installed as his mis- 
tress in elegant apartments near the Thier Garten.’^ 

Kose Hartmann was a small and captivating blonde, with 
dark-blue eyes, fringed with long black lashes. The lovers 
were at that time in the honey-moon of their liaison, and 
while Frederick was sincerely and deeply attached to the 
girl, she on her side was chiefly attracted by the luxuries 
and pleasures which he had placed within her reach. 
Whereas he was almost heart-broken at the idea of leaving 
her, she only apprehended in the separation a sudden end 
to all the advantages of a life of ease and indulgence and 
a return to her former obscure existence. To make a long 
story short, she played her cards so well during the last days 
of the young lieutenant’s stay at Berlin, that on the eve of 
his departure she induced him to contract a secret mar- 


18 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


riage with her. It is needless to add that this was a fatal 
step, as far as the future career of Frederick was con- 
cerned. But he was scarcely nineteen years old at the 
time, and in the hands of a clever and designing woman 
several years his senior. Of course, they adopted every 
possible measure to prevent their altered relations from 
becoming known, for in the first place German officers are 
prohibited, under severe penalties, from marrying without 
having previously obtained an official authorization from 
the Minister of War; and secondly, Frederick was perfectly 
aware of the intense indignation with which both his father 
and the royal family would regard such a terrible misalli- 
ance. Two days after the ceremony Frederick left for his 
new garrison, promising Rose that he would make speedy 
arrangements whereby she would be enabled to rejoin him. 

In due course he arrived at his destination — a dreary-look- 
• ing village in the neighborhood of Biala — and was received 
with considerable coldness by his new colonel and fellow- 
officers who did not particularly relish the notion that their 
regiment should be regarded as a kind of penitentiary for 
offending guardsmen. The commander, in particular, was 
a thorough martinet, who looked with extreme disfavor on 
all the mannerisms and dandified airs of the young count. 
Thoroughly out of sympathy with his uncongenial messmates, 
Frederick soon began to feel oppressed by the monotony 
and solitude of his existence, and repeatedly urged Rose by 
letter and teleg.tam to join him. This, however, she was in 
no hurry to do, as she naturally preferred the gay life of the 
capital, with plenty of money to spend and numerous ad- 
mirers, to the dreariness and discomfort of a Polish village 
in the middle of winter. At length, however, Frederick's 
letters grew so pressing that delay was no longer possible, 
and she started for Biala with a perfect mountain of lug- 
gage. On her arrival there she was met by her husband, who 
was beside himself with joy at seeing her again. Of course. 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


ly 

it was more than ever necessary that their true relationship 
should remain a secret, and accordingly Eose took up her 
residence under an assumed name at the solitary inn of the 
village where Frederick was quartered. Every moment 
that he could spare from his military duties he spent with 
her, and it is scarcely necessary to state that their apparently 
questionable relations were soon the talk of the whole place. 
The person^ however, who felt herself the most aggrieved by 
the presence of Eose in the village was the colonehs wife, 
who was profoundly indignant that the woman^^ of a mere 
lieutenant should presume to cover herself with costly furs 
and wear magnificent diamonds, whereas she — good lady — 
was forced to content herself with cloaks lined with rab- 
bit-skin and a total absence of jewelry. Morning, noon, 
and night she assailed her lord and master on the subject, 
and to such a pitch of irritation she had brought him by 
her vituperations that, when at the end of a week he 
finally decided to summon Count von Waldberg to his 
presence, he was in a frame of mind bordering on frenzy. 

Your conduct, sir, is a scandal and a disgrace to the 
regiment, was the greeting which he offered to the young 
lieutenant, as the latter stepped into his room. You ap- 
pear to be lost to all sense of decency and shame. 

Frederick, pale to the very lips, stepped rapidly forward 
and looked his chief defiantly in the face, exclaiming as he 
did so: 

I am at a loss to understand, colonel, in what manner I 
have merited such a torrent of abuse. 

^^You know perfectly well to what I am alluding, re- 
torted the colonel. How dare you bring that infernal 
woman to this place, and install her right under our very 
nose here at the inn? I donT intend to have any of these 
Berlin ways here. If you canT do without her, have the 
good taste, at least, to keep her at Biala, where there are 
houses for women of that class. 


20 


A SEBVANT OF SATAN. 


With almost superhuman efforts to remain calm, the 
young officer murmured hoarsely: 

I must insist, sir, on your speaking of the lady 

^^Lady, indeed!^' fairly yelled the colonel, who was becom- 
ing black in the face with rage; ^‘that vile 

As he uttered these words he was felled to the ground by 
a'terrific blow in the face from Frederick, who exclaimed as 
he struck him: 

She is my wife, you scoundrel P 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


21 


CHAPTEE IL 

A SHOCKED FATHER, 

The sun was just rising from behind Vesuvius when one 
of those hideous and awkward-looking cabs which infest the 
streets of Naples crawled up to the park gates of a handsome 
villa on the road to Posilipo. Carelessly tossing a five-lire 
note to the driver, a young man whose travel-stained ap- 
pearance showed traces of a long journey jumped to the 
ground and violently rang the bell. Some minutes elapsed 
before the porter was sufficiently aroused from his sleep to 
realize the fact that a stranger was waiting for admittance, 
and when he finally issued forth to unlock the gates, his 
face bore manifest evidence of the intense disgust with 
which he regarded the premature disturbance of his ordi- 
narily peaceful slumbers. 

^^Is this the Count von Waldberg^s villa?^^ inquired the 
stranger. 

Yes,^^ replied the porter in a gruff voice. What of 
thatr 

I want to speak to him at once. Unlock the gate.^' 

^•Indeed! You want to see his excellency?’^ 

At oncer 

^^At this hour? Per Bacco! Who has ever heard of 
such a thing? You will have to come back later in the 
day, my young friend — very much later in the day — if you 
wish to be granted the honor of an audience, and with 
that he turned away and was about to leave the stranger 
standing in the road, when suddenly steps were heard ap- 
proaching along the gravel path which led up to the villa, 
and a tall, soldierly figure appeared in view. 


22 


A SEKVANT OF SATAN. 


^^Good morning, Beppo; what brings you out of bed at 
this unearthly hour of the morning? This is rather un- 
usual, is it not?^^ 

^‘It is, indeed, Sig. Franz. It is a young fellow outside 
there who actually insists on seeing his excellency at 
once.^' 

On hearing this Franz, who was the generahs confiden- 
tial valet, took a cursory glance at the stranger, and sud- 
denly seizing the pompous porter by the shoulder, caused 
him to wheel round with such violence as to almost de- 
stroy his equilibrium. 

Open, you fool! It is the young count! What do you 
mean by keeping him waiting out in the road? Are you 
bereft of your senses ?^^ 

Snatching the keys from the hands of the astonished 
Italian he brushed past him, threw open the gates and ad- 
mitted Frederick, for it was he. 

^^Herr Graf, Her Graf, what an unexpected pleasure is 
this. How delighted his excellency will be!^' 

I doiiT know so much about that, Franz, but I want to 
speak to my father at once. Let him know that I am here, 
and ask him to receive me as soon as possible. 

After conducting Frederick to a room on the first floor 
of the villa and attending to his wants the old servant left 
him to notify the general of his son’s arrival. 

The young man had meanwhile dragged a low arm-chair 
to the open window, and sat gazing with a tired and 
troubled expression at the magnificent landscape stretched 
out before him. 

Four days had elapsed since the exciting scene described 
in the last chapter. The violence of the blow inflicted by 
Frederick had caused the colonel to fall heavily against the 
brass corner of a ponderous writing-table, cutting a deep 
gash across his forehead, and the blood triokled freely from 
the wound as he lay unconscious on the ground. The 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


23 


sight of the prostrate figure of his commanding officer re- 
called the young lieutenant to his senses, and he realized 
in a moment the terrible consequences of his act. Visions 
of court-martial, life-long incarceration in a fortress, or 
even death, fiashed like lightning through his brain and, 
rushing from the room, he hastened to his stables. Hastily 
saddling the fieetest of the three horses which he had 
brought from Berlin, he galloped at break-neck speed to 
the nearest point of the frontier, and within an hour after 
the incident was out of German territary, and for the mo- 
ment, at any rate, safe from pursuit. Four hours after 
passing the border line he rode into the Austrian town of 
Cracow, and alighted at the Hotel de Saxe. Having but 
little money about him at the moment of his flight, he 
disposed of his horse to the innkeeper, and with the pro- 
ceeds of the sale purchased an outfit of civilian clothes in 
lieu of his uniform, and a ticket to Naples, where his father 
was spending the winter. 

Before his departure for Cracow, Frederick posted a letter 
to Kose instructing her to lose no time in leaving the neigh- 
bourhood of Biala and to proceed to Berlin, where she was 
to remain until he wrote to her from Naples. 

His object in proceeding to the latter place was easy to 
understand. He knew that the general was the only man 
who possessed sufficient infiuence in the highest quarters to 
venture to intercede on his behalf, and although he was ac- 
quainted with his fathers strict ideas on all questions per- 
taining to military discipline, yet he retained a faint hope 
that parental affection would overpower the form el- 
and would induce him to regard, with a certain 
amount of indulgence, his eldest son^s conduct. More- 
over, Frederick was at the time in great financial difficulties. 
The debts which he had contracted before leaving Berlin 
were enormous. His appeal to the trustees of the fortune 
left to him by his mother for an increase of his allowance. 


24 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


or, at any rate, for an advance sufficient to stave off the 
most pressing claims, had been met by a stern refusal, and the 

cent per cent, gentry^^ of the capital proved equally ob- 
durate in declining to loan any further sums on the strength 
of the inheritance due him at his majority. On the other 
hand, it was perfectly clear to Frederick that he would be 
obliged to remain absent from Germany for several years, 
ntil the incident with his colonel had blown over. But he 
could not diope to do this without money — especially now 
that he was married — and the only person from whom there 
was the slightest prospect of his obtaining any financial as- 
sistance was his father.’ 

He was in no cheerful frame of mind as he thought of all 
this while awaiting his fathers summons. Had the latter 
already received news of his son’s conduct? That was 
hardly possible. It was too soon. How, then, was he to 
explain the events of the last ten days to the general, of 
whom he stood somewhat in awe? 

His meditations were interrupted by Franz’s return to tell 
him that General von Waldberg was ready to receive him. 

His excellency would hardly believe me when I told 
him of the Herr Graff’s arrival,” said Franz, with a beam- 
ing smile, ^^but he is much delighted, as I knew he 
would be.” 

Frederick’s heart sank as he pictured to himself the grief 
and anger which the discovery of the true reason of his un- 
expected visit would cause his father. 

His hesitating knock at the general’s door was answered 
by a cheery ^^Come in;” and hardly had he entered the 
room when he found himself clasped in his father’s arms. 
General Count von Waldberg was still at that time a re- 
markably handsome and young-looking man. Tall, and 
straight as a dart, his appearance was extremely aristo- 
cratic; his hair and mustache were tinged with gray, but 
his bright blue eyes were undimmed by age. 


A SEBVANT OF SATAN. 


25 


After the first greetings had been exchanged, the gen- 
eral sat down on a couch, and said, laughingly: 

^^Now, my dear ^boy, tell me by what trick you have 
managed to obtain from your new colonel a leave of absence 
after such a short service in his regiment. I know you 
of old. What fresh deviltry have you been up to? Come, 
make a clean^breast of it at once, and let us have it ^over.^^ 



^^My dear father/^ murmured the young man, with 
downcast eyes, I am afraid that the confession which I 
have to make will pain you very much. The fact is, I — I 
— took French leave. 

Come, come, that is more serious than I thought, ex- 
claimed the general, whose genial smile had suddenly given 


26 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


way to a very stern expression. Surely you are joking. You 
don^t mean to tell me that you are here without the per- 
mission of your superiors 

Frederick bent his head, and did not reply. 

^^But are you aware that this is nothing less than an act 
of desertion thundered the general, exasperated by his 
son’s silence, and starting to his feet. You must be be- 
reft of your senses, sir, to dare to tell me that a Count von 
Waldberg has deserted from his regiment. Speak! Ex- 
plain. I command you!” 

I was provoked beyond all endurance by my colonel,” 
replied Frederick, in short, broken sentences. ^^We quar- 
relled, and in a moment of blind passion I struck him a 
blow in the face which felled him to the ground. I was 
compelled to make my escape in order to avoid a court- 
martial.” 

The general, now as pale as his son, advanced a step to- 
ward him, and, laying his hand heavily on the young 
man’s shoulder, said, in a tone of voice which betrayed the 
most intense emotion: 

Do you mean to say that you actually struck your su- 
perior officer! and that, after committing this unpardona- 
ble crime, you made matters worse by deserting, like a cow- 
ard, instead of at least displaying the courage to remain 
and face the consequences, whatever they might be? Great 
God, that I should live to see this day?” 

Frederick, who by this time thoroughly realized that the 
only course to adopt lay in throwing himself entirely on his 
father’s mercy, muttered, in a low voice: 

^^The colonel, who has always displayed the most marked 
dislike toward me ever since I joined his regiment, sum- 
moned me five days ago, to reprimand me concerning my 
relations with a lady who was staying at the inn of our vil- 
lage — in fact, who had come there on my account.” 

^^Ah!” exclaimed the general, I was sure of it. An- 


A SEEVANT OF SATAN. 


27 


other of those insane scrapes into which you are always 
being led by some disreputable cocotte,^^ 

^^Stay, father/^ interrupted Frederick. ^^Not a word 
more, I entreat you. It was just for such a remark that I 
struck my colonel. I will not hear a word against the 
woman who is my wife.^^ 

^^Your wife! your wife! Do you want me to believe 
that you have married without my consent — without the 
permission of the military authorities — without the ap- 
proval of your family and of your king? Who, then, is 
the woman whom you were so ashamed to acknowledge?^^ 
A^ure and noble-hearted girl, whose only sin is her 
humble birth,^^ retorted Frederick. 

Enough, sir! Tell me her name, and how you came to 
know her.^^ 

^^Her name was Eose Hartmann, and she Well, she 

was a shop-girl at ^Louise^s when I first made her ac- 
quaintance.^^ 

The general had by this time become perfectly calm, but 
it was a calm that boded far worse than his former anger. 

Look here, Frederick, said he, very coldly, ^‘1 have 
full reason to mistrust you now; and before I take any step 
in this unfortunate matter, I must write to Berlin, and to 
your regiment, for the purpose of discovering the full ex- 
tent of your misconduct. You will be good enough to con- 
sider yourself as under arrest here. I forbid you to leave 
your room under any pretext whatever. I will tell your 
step-mother that you are ill, and can see nobody, not even 
her, and I shall take good care that all our friends are left 
in ignorance of your presence here. And now leave me. I 
want to be alone. I will send for you when I want you.""^ 

Frederick, thoroughly cowed by his fathers manner, 
murmured some words of regret and explanation, but the 
general pointed toward the door, and he left his presence 
with a heavy heart. 


28 


A SEBVANT OF SATAN. 


Keturning to the rooms to which Franz had 'conducted 
him on his arrival, he gave himself up to the gloomiest 
forebodings, and spent hours in gazing abstractedly out of 
the windows. His meals were brought him by Franz, 
whose feelings can more easily be imagined than described. 

On the third day after his interview with his father, one 
of the Italian servants knocked at the door, and handed 
him a letter, which bore the Biala postmark, and which 
evidently had escaped the vigilance of both the general and 
of Franz. It was from Rose, and its contents agitated him 
beyond all measure. She wrote him that she had been sub- 
jected to the greatest indignity after his flight — in fact, 
treated like a mere common camp-follower — and had been 
turned out of the inn and driven from the village by the 
orders of the colonel. She added that, having but little 
money, she had not been able to proceed any farther than 
Biala, where she was now awaiting his instructions and re- 
mittances. She concluded by declaring that if after all she 
had suffered for his sake, he did not at once send a sufficient 
sum to enable her to leave the place and to return to Berlin, 
she would put an end to her days, having no intention to 
continue to live as she was doing now. 

Frederick was nearly heart-broken. He had no funds, 
beyond a few lire notes, and, in his present position, no 
means of obtaining any except through his father. He 
therefore immediately wrote a few lines, which he sent to 
the general by Franz, entreating him to let him have at 
once a check for a couple of hundred thalers. 

The generaFs reply was a decided refusal, and couched 
in such terms as to leave no glimmer of hope that he would 
relent in the matter. 

Driven to desperation, Frederick turned over in his mind 
a hundred different schemes for raising the money he re- 
quired, but he was forced to acknowledge to himself that 
each was more hare-brained than the other; and in the bit- 


A SEEVANT OF SATAN. 


29 


terness of his heart ;he ended by cursing the day he was 
born. 

That night, after all the inmates of the villa had retired 
to rest, they were startled by several pistol-shots, and the 
sound of a violent scuffle in the generaFs library, on the 



HE HELD A SMOKIKG KEYOLVER IH HIS HAND. 

ground floor. The general himself and several of the men- 
servants rushed to the spot from which the noise proceeded, 
and discovered Frederick, who, in his dressing-gown, stood 
near a shattered window, with a smoking revolver in his 
hand. 


30 


A SEKVANT OF SATAN. 


As they entered the room Frederick fired another shot 
through the window and shouting, I have hit one of them, 
I am sure. I heard a scream jumped into the garden and 
rushed across the lawn and through the shrubbery, followed 
by the general and the more or less terrified servants. All 
their endeavors to capture the midnight intruders proved, 
however, fruitless, and whether wounded or not, the burg- 
lars had evidently succeeded in making good their escape. 

On returning to the library it was ascertained that the 
generahs desk had been forced open and that a consider- 
able sum of money in gold and notes, together with several 
valuable bonds and railway shares, had been abstracted 
therefrom. Frederick related that he had been awakened 
shortly after midnight by a strange grating sound proceed- 
ing from the room immediately beneath his own. That, 
jumping out of bed, he had quickly put on his dressing- 
gown, and seizing a loaded revolver, [had softly crept down 
stairs. Peeping through the keyhole he had seen two men 
who, by the light of a small taper, were ransacking his 
father’s desk. His efforts in the dark to open the door 
must have evidently disturbed them, for by the time he 
managed to enter they had reached the window and were in 
the act of leaping into the gardens when he fired several 
shots at them in rapid succession. It was at this juncture 
that his father and the servants had appeared on the 
scene. 

So gratified was the general by the courage and presence 
of mind displayed by Frederick in attacking the burglars 
single-handed that he forgot for the moment both the loss 
of his stolen property and the grave offenses of which the 
young man had been guilty. Grasping his son’s hands he 
expressed his satisfaction to him in no measured terms, and 
indeed was on the point of releasing him from any further 
arrest or confinement to his room. On second thought, 
however, he decided to await the replies to his letters from 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


31 


Berlin before doing so, especially as he was extremely 
anxious that none of the visitors to the villa should become 
aware of Frederick’s presence at N'aples. 

Early next morning Gen. Von Waldberg drove into 
NTaples to inform the chief of police of the robbery com- 
mitted at his residence and to request him to offer a reward 



ROSE HARTMANN, COUNTESS YON WALDBERG. 


for the capture of the thieves and the recovery of the stolen 
property. As he rode back to Posilipo he reflected, with 
feelings of much gratiflcation, on the pluck shown by his 
son during the night, and determined to write at once an ac- 
count of the whole occurrence to the kin^, in the hope 


32 


A SEKVANT OF SATAN. 


that it might induce his majesty to regard with greater 
leniency the lad^s misconduct. He was just in the act of 
entering his library for this purpose when he happened to 
catch sight of one of the Italian servants coming down stairs 
from Frederick's room with a bulky envelope in his hand. 
On perceiving the general the man attempted to conceal it, 
but the old count was too quick, and, ordering him into 
the library, exacted the surrender of the letter. 

Where are you going, and what is this?’^ demanded he 
of the frightened Neapolitan. The latteFs eyes lowered 
before his masters stern gaze, and he confessed in faltering 
tones that the young count had told him to go and 
post the letter immediately and without letting any one 
know about it. 

You need not trouble yourself any further about the 
matter, remarked the general, Franz will attend to it, 
and see here, if you breathe a word about this either to 
Count Frederick or to any one else you will be turned out 
of the house at an hour's notice. Do you understand?" 

^^Si eccellenza, si eccellenza," murmured the badly 
scared Italian, as with many low bows he backed out of the 
general's presence. 

As soon as the door was closed the old count raised his 
glasses to his eyes for the purpose of discovering the desti- 
nation of his son's letter. It was addressed to Kose Hart- 
mann, at Biala, and judging by its bulk certainly contained 
something besides ordinary note-paper. 

Suddenly a terrible suspicion flashed through his mind. 
He remembered Frederick's urgent appeal for money on 
the previous day. But no! The idea was too horrible. It 
was impossible. The boy was certainly a thorough scape- 
grace, but not that! No, not that! The unhappy father 
dashed the letter down on the table and began pacing up and 
down the room in an agony of incertitude and doubt. 
Could his son be guilty? The solution of the mystery was 


A SERVANT OP SATAN. 


33 


contained in that envelope. Would he be justified in 
opening it? The whole honor of the ancient house of 
Waldberg was at stake. It was absolutely necessary that 
he^ as its chief, should know whether or not one of the 
principal members thereof was a common thief. If so it 
was his- duty to mercilessly lop off the rotten branch of the 
family tree. After long hesitation he finally seized the 
letter, and with one wrench tore open the envelope. As 
he did so an exclamation of horror and disgust escaped his 
blanched lips, for several Prussian bank-notes of consider- 
able value, which he immediately recognized as his pro- 
perty, fell at his feet on the carpet. 

It is impossible to descnbe the intense misery of the 
wretched father when he found that the thief who was 
being tracked by the l^eapolitan police was no other than 
his first-born. For several hours he sat at his writing- 
table, his gray head bowed in grief and almost prostrated 
by this awful discovery. For a long time he was totally 
unable to decide what was to be done, and, indeed, had 
Frederick presented himself before him at that time he 
would have been almost capable of killing him with his 
own hand in his paroxysm of anger and shame. 

Shortly after darkness had set in, Franz entered Freder- 
ick's room and handed him a sealed letter addressed in his 
father’s hand. Glancing at its contents the young man 
uttered a cry of despair and terror, and springing to his 
feet was rushing toward the door, when Franz quietly 
placed himself with his back against it, saying: 

^^His excellency’s orders are that the Herr Graf must 
not leave this room under any pretext until the hour of de- 
parture. I have his strict commands to remain with the 
Herr Graf and to prevent him from communicating with 
anybody in the house. 

The old soldier’s lips quivered as he spoke, and his eyes 
were full of tears. For it cut him to the very heart to see 


34 


A SEBVANT OF SATAN. 


the suffering depicted on the lad^s face, and what between 
his loyalty and devotion to his master and his affection for 
the young man whom he had carried about in his arms as a 
child, he was in great distress. 

Frederick groaned, and picking up his fathers letter 
read it over once more. It ran as follows: 

‘^You have betrayed and robbed me! You are not only 
a deserter, but also a thief. I intercepted your letter to the 
woman you call your wife, and feeling myself justified under 
the circumstances to open it I found therein the proofs of 
your crime. You will leave my house to-night forever. 
The proceeds of your robbery will keep you for some time 
from want. It will be all that you will have to depend on, 
for having become an outlaw hj your desertion, and your 
attack on your colonel, the Prussian Government will 
never permit you to enter into possession of your mothers 
fortune. You never need hope to see me again, or to hold 
any further communication with me or mine. You are no 
longer a child of mine. I solemnly renounce you as my son. 
May God Almighty keep you from further crime. 

Count H. yon Waldberg.^^ 

That night at 10 o'clock Frederick embarked at Naples 
on a Marseilles-bound steamer, being escorted to the wharf 
by Franz. 

He never saw his father again. 


CHAPTER HI. 

A HORRIBLE PREDICAMENT. 

The strains of a beautiful old German -melody, ren- 
dered by a rich contralto voice, floated through the night 
air and caused many a passer-by to linger beneath the 
open windows of a house in the Avenue Friedland 
whence they proceeded. It was a singularly beautiful 
woman who was singing, seated at the piano, in the half 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


85 


light of a daintily furnished drawing-room. Dressed in a 
marvelous composition of white velvet and old lace, with 
fragrant gardenias nestling in her bosom and in her soft, 
golden hair, her low bodice displayed to great advantage the 
marble whiteness and perfect outline of her bust. 

NTonsense, nonsense, cries a cheery voice from the bal- 
cony where Frederick von Waldberg has been enjoying his 
after-dinner weed. With a light-hearted laugh he flings 
his half-burnt cigar into the street and steps into the room. 
Approaching his wife he encircles her slender waist with his 
arm and draws her curly head upon his shoulder. 

Dare to repeat, now, you perverse little woman, that 
you are sad. What ails you? Have you not all you can 
wish for, including a devoted slave of a husband who has 
given up everything for you, and is only governed by your 
sweet will?^^ 

^^Yes, dear, yes, dear, murmurs Eose, gently disengag- 
ing herself from his embrace, but you can't think how it 
pains me to know that it is I who have been the cause of 
your quarrel with your father — and then the future is so un- 
certain. We have not very much money left, and how we 
shall manage to keep up this establishment is more than I 
can tell.^^ 

Never mind; leave that tome. I will And the means 
somehow or other; only don^t fret,'^ replies Frederick, in a 
low voice. ^^As long as you continue to love me every- 
thing will be all right. You are not yet tired of me, Weib- 
chen, are you?'^ 

She laughs saucily, but there is a queer light in her dark- 
blue eyes as she seats herself again at the piano and runs 
her Angers dreamily over the keys. 

Three months have elapsed since the' burglary at Gen. 
von Waldberg^s Neapolitan residence, and some eight or ten 
weeks since Count and Countess Frederick von Waldberg 
have taken up their quarters in Paris. They live recklessly 


36 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


and extravagantly, like children who are intent on sipping 
all the sweets of the cup of life without giving a moment’s 
thought to the dregs at the bottom thereof, and -which they 
are bound to reach sooner or later. 

Frederick’s careless and easy-going nature had enabled 
him to forget in an incredibly short space of time all the 
tragic scenes through which he passed at Biala and Naples. 
He is still passionately in love with his wife, whose beauty 
is the talk of Paris. He has not attempted to enter society, 
but when the young couple drive in the ^^Bois” in their 
well-appointed victoria, or enter a box at one of the fashion- 
able theaters, they are the cynosure of all eyes. M oreover 
Frederick has picked up many male acquaintanance, and 
the choice fare and exquisite wines which are always to be 
found at his hospitable board prove nearly as great an at- 
traction as the lovely eyes and matchless elegance of the 
mistress of the house. 

Rose has, outwardly at least, become a perfect femme du 
wonde. She has picked up all the ways and mannerisms of 
the higher classes with a quickness that astonishes and de- 
lights her huband. But it is fortunate that he is unable to 
fathom the depths of her heart. For it is just as hard, as 
mercenary and corrupt as of yore, and she often involun- 
tarily yearns for the gutter from which her husband has 
raised her. 

Toward 9 o’clock Frederick called for his coat and hat, 
and, kissing his wife tenderly, exclaimed: 

Do not wait up for me, little woman, as I shall not be 
home from the club till about 2 o’clock.” 

With that he left the house and strolled down the avenue 
to one of the well-known cercies de jeu (gambling clubs) of 
the Boulevards. 

Luck, however, was against him for once, and shortly 
after 11 o’clock, having sustained heavy losses, he left the 
club and walked rapidly home, in a very bad temper. 


A SEKVANT OF SATAN. 


87 


Letting himself in with his latch-key he walks softly up 
stairs and enters the drawing-room where a light is still 
dimly burning. His footsteps fall noiselessly on the thick 
carpet, and wishing to surprise Eose, who could hardly have 
retired for the night at this comparatively early hour, he 
pulls aside the heavy drapery of tawny plush which screens 
the door of her ^‘‘boudoir, and peeps in. Hardly has he 
done so tlian he springs forward with a yell of rage, for 
there on a low oriental divan he beholds his wife, his be- 
loved Eose, in the arms of his butler. 

The terrified servant makes a dash for the nearest door 
and escapes through the adjoining conservatory. Frederick, 
scorning to jDursue him, turns his attention to Eose. Bru- 
tally grasping her arm, he raises her from the ground where 
she has fiung herself on her knees at his feet, and without a 
word he drags her down stairs, stopping for a moment in 
the hall below to throw a gorgeous red-brocaded opera-cloak, 
which hangs there, on the speechless woman^s shoulders. 
Opening the front door, he thrusts her into the street, ex- 
claiming hoarsely as he bangs it behind her: 

^^That is where you belong. 

For a few minutes Eose stood on the pavement, dazed 
and trembling, but suddenly recalling to mind the expres- 
sion of her infuriated husband^s eyes as he pushed her down 
stairs she was seized with terror and fied down the avenue. 

She had not gone very far when two men, springing from 
a dark side street, arrested her wild flight by clutching her 
arms. 

"'Where is your police permit?'" exclaimed the taller of 
the two. 

Eose stared helplessly at them without replying. 

"Why don't you answer?" yelled the other, shaking her 
violently. "Don't you hear me talking to you? Are you 
drunk 

The unfortunate woman draws herself up, and, shaking 


38 


A SEBVANT OF SATAN. 


off the dirty hand of the Agent-des-Moeurs’^ (police charged 
with the control of the women of ill-repute,) replied: 

I do not know what you mean. There is some mistake. 
I am the Countesse de Waldberg; let me go!^^ 

Countess indeed! Is that all? We know all about such 



countesses. They belong in the St. Lazarre Prison when 
they run round without their Mivret^ (police permit.) 
Aliens! come along! Enough of these airs and graces! A 
decent woman does not pace the streets at midnight in a 
ball-dress/^ 


A SEKVANT OF SATAN. 


39 


With a shriek of horror Rose made a sudden dart forward, 
but has not got far before she is seized by the hair with such 
force as to throw her on the pavement. Picking her up 
again, the Agents-des-Moeurs call a passing night cab, and, 
bundling the now fainting woman into it, order the coach- 
man to drive to the police station. 

On arriving at the police station Rose was roughly 
dragged from the cab by the two Agents des Moeurs and 
thrust into the Yiolon — a filthy cell which was already 
crowded with a score or two of drunk and disorderly 
women. The atmosphere which reigned in the place was 
indescribably horrible and nauseating; and the shrieks, the 
yells, and the disgusting songs and discordant cries of its 
occupants were only interrupted from time to time when 
the door was opened to give admittance to some fresh 
samples of the feminine scum of the Paris streets. Such 
was the pandemonium in which the (Jountess von Wald- 
berg passed the first night after being driven out of her 
luxuriously appointed home in the Avenue Friedland. 

When at length day began to dawn through the iron 
grating of the solitary window of the cell, she breathed a 
sigh of relief. The scene around her was one fit to figure 
in Banters Inferno.'"^ Every imaginable type of woman 
seemed to be assembled within the circumscribed limits of 
those four grimy walls, from the demi-mondaine in silks 
and satins who had been run in for creating a disturbance 
at Mabille, down to the old and tattered ragpicker who 
had been arrested for drunkenness; from the bourgeoise 
who had been discovered in the act of betraying her hus- 
band, down to the ordinary street -walker, who had been 
caught abroad without her police livret. Here and there, 
too, were a shoplifter, a lonne who had assaulted her mis- 
tress, and a market woman who, in a moment of fury, had 


40 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


chewed off her antagonist's nose. Dressed in the most mot- 
ley of costumes, they lay about on the wooden bench which 
ran round the cell, or were stretched prostrate on the damp 
and dirty brick floor. 

Amid these surroundings Eose presented a truly strange 
appearance as she stood up in the cold morning light, with 
her costly white velvet gown all stained with mud, from 
which the superb lace flounces had been partly torn by the 
brutal hands of the men who had arrested her. Her beau- 
tiful golden hair lay in tangled masses on her hare shoul- 
ders, from which the red opera-cloak had fallen as she rose 
to her feet. She was very pale and there was a hard and 
stony look in her sunken eyes. 

She had had time to reflect on the events of the previous 
evening, and thoroughly realized the fact that after what 
had happened Frederick would refuse to acknowledge her 
as his wife. It would be, therefore, more than useless to 
appeal to him to substantiate the statements which she had 
at first made as to her rank and condition; indeed, matters 
might be only aggravated by such a course, and she deter- 
mined to maintain the strictest silence concerning her 
former life. Her heart, however, was filled to overflowing 
with bitterness against her husband, to whose conduct she 
attributed her present horrible predicament. Intense hatred 
had taken the place of any feelings of affection which she 
might formerly have possessed for him, and she then and 
there registered a solemn oath that she would never rest 
until she had wreaked a terrible vengeance for all she had 
suffered on his account. 

At eight o^clock she was brought into court and charged 
with having been found plying an immoral trade in the 
public streets, without having previously obtained the re- 
quired license from the Prefecture de Police,^^ For this 
offense the magistrate, without much questioning, sentenced 
her to three months^ imprisonment at St. Lazarre. Shortly 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


41 


afterward the police-van^ which in French bears the eupho- 
nic name of ^^Panier a Salade^^ (Salad Basket), drew up at 
the door of the station-house, and Kose, with most of the 
women who had spent the night in the same cell with her, 
was bundled into the dismal conveyance. The latter then 
rattled oif through the streets along which she had last 
driven reclining lazily on the soft cushions of her victoria, 
to the well-known prison in the Faubourg St. Denis, within 
the walls of which even an hour's sojourn is sufficient to 
brand a woman with infamy for the remainder of her days. 

On alighting in the court-yard of St. Lazarre, Eose was 
taken to the clerk's office, Avhere her name, age, and origin 
were entered on the prison register. She gave her name as 
Kose Hartmann, her age as twenty-five, and declared, 
in response to the inquiries on the subject, that she had no 
profession and was of German extraction. From thence 
she was passed on to the hands of Madame la Fouilleuse," 
as the searcher is nicknamed, who made her strip, and, 
after having searched her clothes and even her hair, bade 
her put on the prison dress, consisting of coarse linen under- 
clothes, blue cotton hose, thick shoes, a brown stuff dress, 
brown woolen cap, and large blue cotton cloth apron. 

The prison regulations at St. Lazarre were then and are 
still very severe. The prisoners have to get up at five 
o'clock in the morning. They sleep four together in one 
room, and have no other toilet utensils than small pitchers 
of water and basins no bigger than a moderate-sized soup 
plate. This makes their morning bath a rather difficult 
operation. Their meals, except when they are allowed meat 
on Sundays, consist of a dish of thin vegetable broth, a 
piece of brown bread, and fricasseed vegetables. While 
they are at table, a Sister of the religious order of Marie- 
Joseph reads aloud to them extracts from some pious book. 
Ten hours of the long, weary day are spent in doing plain 
needlework, and they have to be in bed for the night at 


42 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


7:30 o'clock. At eight o'clock all lights are extinguished 
throughout the prison, and during the long night no sound 



THE ^‘MOUSKl" STREET AT CAIRO, EGYPT. 

is heard in the big pile of buildings but the steps of the 
Sisters of Marie- Joseph, who are on guard, and who pace 



A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


43 


the long corridors at fixed intervals to see that there is no 
talking going on. 

It must be acknowledged that all this was a cruel change 
to Eose, who, at any rate during the previous twelve 
months, had been accustomed to a life of elegance, refine- 
ment, and cruelty. 


CHAPTER IV, 

THE HAREH. 

A fortnight after the events described in the previous 
chapter the war broke out which cost Napoleon III. his 
throne, and all the German residents in Paris were forced 
to take their departure at an exceedingly short notice. 
Among their number was Count Frederick von Waldberg, 
who, since the disappearance of Rose, had plunged into the 
wildest course of dissipation and debauchery, as if with the 
intention of drowning all memory of the past. The discovery 
of his wife^s infamy had exercised a most disastrous effect on 
the young man^s mind. It had rendered him thoroughly 
hardened and cynical, and had definitely banished forever 
any remnant of moral feeling or conscience, which he had 
until then retained. When he refiected on all the brilliant 
prospects and future which he had surrendered for Rosens 
sake, he grew sick at heart, and determined to put to good 
account the bitter experience which he had acquired. 
Never again would he allow himself to be softened and in- 
fluenced by any affaire de 'cxiir, but, on the contrary, women 
should become subservient to his interests. He would deal 
with them in the same relentless and cruel manner that 
Rose had dealt with him. The old life was dead and gone, 
and he made up his mind to start out on a new career un- 
burdened by any such baggage as scruples or honor. 


44 


A SEBVANT OP SATAN, 


It was in this frame of mind that he embarked at Mar- 
seilles on board an English steamer bound for Alexandria. 
Being debarred from returning to Germany or Italy, and 
France having now closed her doors against him, he de- 
cided to leave Europe for a time and to try his luck in the 
Orient. 

In due course he arrived at Cairo and took up his resi- 
dence at Shepheard's well-known hostelry. He could not 
help being struck by the novelty of the scenes which met 
his eye on every side, and the ancient capital of Egypt, 
with its narrow, winding streets; its fierce sunlight and 
dark shadows, its palaces, gardens, and waving palm trees, 
appealed to all his artistic instincts. 

One afternoon, as he was riding round Gezireh, his at- 
tention was attracted to a brougham drawn by two magnifi- 
cent black horses which had pulled up under one of the 
grand old sycamore trees that shade the avenue, and near 
to the kiosk in the Khedival gardens, where a military 
band was rendering with more vigor than harmony several 
of the most popular airs from ^^La Grande Duchesse.^^ 
The only occupant of the carriage was a woman dressed in 
Turkish fashion, but whose yashmak, or vail, was of a 
transparency which enhanced rather than concealed her 
lovely features. The large, dark, and sensuous eyes which 
glanced at him between the tulle folds of the vail sent a 
thrill through his very heart, and he involuntarily checked 
his horse and stood gazing at the enchanting vision. At 
this moment a gigantic black eunuch, who was evidently in 
attendance on the lady and who had been standing on the 
off side of the carriage, suddenly became aware of the ad- 
miring looks cast by the young stranger on his mistress. 
He rushed up to the carriage window, with stified oath 
pulled down the silken blind, and then, turning to 
the coachman, ordered him to drive on. He then 
mounted a magnificent barb which was being walked up 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


45 


and down by a gorgeously dressed sais/^ or groom, and 
galloped after the brougham, casting as he did so a look of 
such malignance at Frederick that the latter, taken by sur- 
prise, did not even retain enough presence of mind to mako 
any attempt to follow the carriage. 

For several days in succession Frederick made a point of 
spending his afternoons in riding round Gezirehin the hope 
of obtaining another glance at the beautiful Hanem; but 
she did not put in an appearance, and the young man had 
almost forgotten the incident, when one morning, while 
riding along the road which Khedive Ismail, with^truly 
oriental gallantry, had caused to be constructed from Cairo 
out to the Pyramids for the use of Empress Eugenie, on the 
occasion of her visit in 1869, he suddenly caught sight of 
the black horses and brougham coming 'slowly toward him. 
There was no one else in view, and the ordinarily watch- 
ful eunuch had taken advantage of the solitude of the spot 
to relax his vigilance and to lag a good way behind. 
Frederick was therefare enabled to gaze unhindered at the 
Oriental beauty. He bowed low over his horse^s mane, and 
was delighted to see that not only was his salutation 
graciously responded to, but that, moreover, the lady, rais- 
ing one of her small jeweled hands to her yashmak, 
pulled it slightly aside so as to discover to his enraptured 
eyes a face so perfectly lovely that he was fairly staggered. 
She smiled enchantingly at him, and, putting the tips of 
her fingers to her rpsy lips, motioned him away with a look 
full of promise. Frederick would fain have drawn nearer 
to the carriage, but the coachman suddenly started his 
horses ofi at a sharp trot, and there was nothing for him to 
do but to resume his canter out to the Pyramids and to re- 
ceive with a smile the angry glances of his friend the 
eunuch, whom he passed shortly afterward. 

Neither the Sphinx nor the Pyramids possessed much 
attraction for Frederick that day, and his stay out at Gezireh 


46 


A SEKVANT OF SATAN. 


was but a short one. He was in a hurry to get back into 
town. He was perfectly wild with delight at the idea of 
his adventure. Who could the beautiful creature be? He 
had noticed a princess^ coronet on the panels of the car- 
riage, and the black horses and glittering liveries of the 
coachman, footman, and of the two grooms would lead to 
belief that they belonged to a member of the Khedival 
family. Moreover, the eunuch in attendance was cer- 
tainly a person of high rank, a fact which was demonstrated 
by the ribbon of the Order of the Osmanieh^^ which he 
wore in his button-hole. 

Frederick was puzzled to know how all this would end. 
That the fair lady looked upon him with favor was un- 
deniable. 

But he knew enough about the strict rules of an oriental 
harem to doubt whether he would ever be able to meet her 
alone, as the eunuch had already noticed his admiration of 
the lady and would certainly warn his master, the Pasha. 
However, Frederick determined to go to the bitter end, 
no matter what the cost might be. 

Two days later he was lounging on the terrace of the 
hotel, lazily watching the throng of Arabs, donkeys, and 
beggars jostling one another along the Esbekleh street, 
Then his attention was suddenly attracted by a ragged in- 
dividual, with a very black countenance and a basket of 
flowers, who was evidently trying to catch his eye. 
Frederick, leaning over the balustrade, was about to throw 
a few piasters to the man, when the latter suddenly broke 
loose from the crowd, and walking up the marble steps, 
^‘salaamed^^ to him in the most approved fashion; then 
squatting down on the ground in front of him, he extracted 
a bunch of flowers from his basket. Frederick was about 
to motion him away, when the man hurriedly thrust the 
roses into his hands, whispering in a low, guttural voice: 

Letter for you.^' 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


47 


He then ‘^salaamed^^ again and, arising from the ground, 
began displaying his wares to some ladies who were sitting 
under the veranda. Frederick, whose thoughts imme- 
diately turned to the lady whom he had met two days before 
on the road to the Pyramids, repaired af once to his room 
and, cutting the thread which bound the flowers together, 
brought to view a small, square envelope without any ad- 
dress. Carefully opening it he extracted therefrom a highly 
perfumed sheet of pink paper on which the following words 
were written: 

‘ ‘If you wish to see me again, go to-night between 11 and 12 
o^clock to the farther end of the Mouski street and follow the 
woman who will give you a bunch of lotus flowers. She 
will bring you to me. Destroy this.'’^ 

Frederick dropped the note to the floor in his surprise 
and delight. His wildest anticipations were surpassed, for 
in a few hours he would see his hourP face to face. 

At 11 o^clock that night he wandered up the long Mouski 
street, which at that hour looked weird and deserted. He 
took care to keep as much as possible in the more shadowy 
portions of the thoroughfare, so as not to attract the atten- 
tion of the few Arabs who, wrapped in their spectral-look- 
ing burnous, were still to be met with here and there. 
After about an hour’s walk he stopped at the* end of the 
long street and looked about him. N’obody was insight, 
and he was just thinking of retracing his steps when a hand 
was laid on his arm and a vailed woman, without uttering 
a word, placed a small bunch of lotus flowers in his hand. 
She then beckoned to him to follow her, saying in a low, 
musical voice: 

Taala hena” (come this way). 

A few steps brought them to a high stone wall, in which 
a small kind of postern was pierced. Taking hold of 
his hand she led him under the archway, and, inserting a 


48 


A SEKVANT OF SATAN. 


small key in the lock, she opened the door and pushed him 
into the garden. 

Frederick, for a moment, believed that he had been sud- 
denly transported into fairy-land. He found himself in an 
immense garden, where groups of feathery palms and dark 
sycamores made a fitting background for masses of brilliant 
flowers and shrubs in full bloom. The air was redolent 
with the perfume of thousands of orange trees and starry 
jessamine, while the high wall, which looked so bare and 
grim from without, was on the inside covered with blue 
passion-flowers and pink aristolochus. Numerous marble 
fountains sent their silvery jets of spray toward the dark- 
blue heavens, and a flock of red flamingoes stalked majes- 
tically up and down the long stretches of velvety lawn. 

In the distance a white alabaster palace gleamed in the 
glorious Egyptian moonlight, which rendered the scene 
almost as bright as day; and its cupolas and minarets, all 
fretted and perforated, looked like some wonderful piece of 
old lacework. 

Frederick followed his silent companion through a dense 
thicket of rose-bushes, where a narrow path had been cut. 
He noticed that she was very careful to keep away from the 
bright light of the moon and that she occasionally stopped 
to listen. After about ten minutes^ walk they reached a 
side entrance of the palace. The woman, once more taking 
hold of his hand, led him up six or seven steps and into a' 
narrow passage where a silver hanging-lamp shed a dim 
light on the tapestried walls. Turning suddenly to the left 
she lifted a large gold-embroidered drapery which hung 
before an archway and motioned him inside. 

Frederick was in the harem of the famous Princess M. 

Emerging from the comparative darkness of the gardens, 
Frederick was fairly dazzled by the brilliancy of the scene 
which met his eyes. He found himself in a lofty apart- 
ment, the walls of which were entirely covered with silver 


V 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 49 


brocade. White velvet divans ran all around the room, 
and from the painted ceiling hung a rock-crystal chan- 
delier, lighted by at least a hundred wax candles. Great 



FREDERICK CONDUCTED TO THE PRINCESS' HAREM. 

masses of blooming camellias, azalias, and tuberoses were 
tastefully arranged in silver vases on tables of transparent 


V 


50 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


jade. The floor was covered with a white velvet carpet 
richly embroidered with silver, and the windows were hung 
with fairy-like draperies of silver gauze and point lace. 

At the farther end of the apartment was a kind of broad, 
oriental divan, and there, nestling among a pile of cushions, 
reclined the jewel of which all the splendors above de- 
scribed formed but the unworthy setting. Princess Louba, 
a little over twehty-tAVO years of age at the time, was cer- 
tainly one of the loveliest women of the day. Tall and ex- 
quisitely proportioned, her hands and feet were marvelously 
small and the rich contours of her figure were absolutely 
perfect. She had one of those dead white complexions, 
ever so delicately tinted with pink, which remind one of the 
petal of a tea-rose or the interior of a shell. Her large, 
languid black eyes were shaded by long and curly eye- 
lashes, and her straight eyebrows almost met over a small, 
aquiline nose, the sensuous nostrils of which quivered at 
the slightest emotion. In piquant contrast to her dark 
eyes, her hair, of a pale golden color, hung down to below 
her knees. She was dressed in a long ^^djebba,'^ or loose 
robe of white crepe de chine, the semi-transparent folds of 
which clung to her form as the morning dew clings to a 
flower which it is loth to conceal. 

For several minutes Frederick stood as if transfixed, un- 
able to remove his fevered gaze from the lovely apparition 
which rendered him blind to all else. He could see noth- 
ing but the princess, as she lay there in all her indolent 
beauty. 

The Muezzin '' droning forth his harmonious summons 
to prayers from the loftiest galleries of the minarets, had 
but just notified the faithful that it was two hours after 
midnight, when suddenly one of the curtains was softly 
drawn aside, and a woman scarcely less beautiful than the 
princess herself glided into the room. 

Her large violet eye^ flashed triumphantly, and a mock- 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


61 


ing, cruel smile hovered around her red lips as she advanced 
toward the princess and her lover. 

^^Enfin! Louba Hanem!^^ exclaimed she, in French. 

At length I have you in my power! Eevenge always comes 
to those who can afford to wait! For months and months 
you have been the favorite of our lord, the pearl of sur- 
passing value, beside whom all were but as dross, the treasure 
of his heart and the joy of his life, while I — I — was left far 
behind — hardly noticed — often repulsed — I, who am as 
beautiful as you, and who love him with a love of which 
you are utterly incapable! How often have I besought 
Allah to grant me my revenge! He has heard my prayer! 
for within the hour that is now passing away our lord will 
have slain both your lover and yourself! Even at this very 
moment you are being watched, and at a sign from me he 
will be summoned hither to behold with his own eyes the 
shameful manner in which you betray him with a dog of an 
unbelieverr' 

Princess Louba had meanwhile started to her feet, and 
stood there in all her glorious beauty, white and trembling 
with rage and with terror. 

Who is it that will dare to raise his or her hand against 
me, the daughter of his highness! Who are you but a 
mere slave — a toy bought by our lord! The pastime of one 
short hour, thereafter to be flung back into the depths of 
ignominy from which you were raised by his hand! You 
shall suffer cruelly for your present insolence. I will cause 
you to be whipped until every particle of skin has been torn 
from your body.^^ 

^^Will you, indeed, Louba Hanem? I challenge you to 
try it. You will And that even your royal father will be 
powerless to save either your lover or yourself. 

With a snake-like motion of her supple body the vindic- 
tive creature glided to one of the windows opening out on 
to the veranda and was about to issue forth on her danger- 


62 


A SEBVANT OF SATAN. 


ous errand, when, with one bound, Frederick was alongside 
of her, and, grasping her firmly by the arm, exclaimed: 

^^What is it you want? Is it money? If so, you shall 
have it! If you will only be silent! Speak! What do you 
require ?^^ 

With a look of unutterable scorn, she replied: 

Keep your money. It is revenge that I seek! Your 
touch defiles me! Let me go, or it will be the worse for 
you! Are you then so anxious to die a few minutes sooner 
that you dare to tempt me thus?^^ 

Tearing away her arm from Frederick's grasp, she drew a 
long stiletto or dagger from her bosom and made a vio- 
lent lunge at his heart. Frederick, now thoroughly infuri- 
ated, and realizing the fact that he had to deal with a des- 
perate and half-crazy woman, wrenched the knife from her 
and hurled it away among the shrubs in the garden. For 
one moment she struggled desperately to release herself, but 
seeing that it was of no avail and that the young man^s 
slender hands held her like a vise, she uttered one loud cry 
for assistance, which rang through the silence of the night. 

Curse you, be quiet! you she-devil!^^ hissed Frederick 
in her ear. ^^If you utter another sound, I will kill you.^^ 
Once more the girl attempted to scream, but Frederick's 
fingers clutched her throat like steel and stifled her voice. 
For the space of several seconds — they seemed to him so 
many hours — he maintained his grasp, and when at length 
he released his hold the slight body of the girl fell with a 
dull thud to the tessellated floor of the veranda. Instinc- 
tively he bent down over her, and suddenly, with a thrill of 
horror, realized that she was dead. 

At the same moment he heard the sound of heavy steps 
hurrying to the spot where he was, and, forgetting every- 
thing except that his life was at stake, he leaped over the 
alabaster balustrade of the terrace, and fled through the 
gardens without looking behind him. 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


63 


. Oh, the agony of those minutes! The cold perspiration 
was streaming from his forehead, and his heart was beating 
so violently that it nearly took his breath away. In what 



direction was he to escape? The immense gardens seemed 
to constitute an interminable labyrinth of gravel paths, 
winding in and out of the clusters of trees and bushes. 


54 


A SEBVANT OF SATAN. 


Twice he found himself at the foot of the high stone wall, 
which, however, offered no foothold by which he could 
ascend to the summit. At one moment he nearly fell into 
a small lake, which lay half-concealed, buried between 
moss-covered banks. Like a hunted animal, he was about 
to retrace his steps, when he saw in the distance a score or 
so of men, carrying torches, who were running in all direc- 
tions, shouting loudly as they drew nigh to him. His des- 
peration was such that he thought for one moment of giving 
himself up to them. But the instinct of self-preservation 



FKEDERICK FLEES THROUGH THE GARDENS. 


was too strong, and once more he sped along in the shadow 
of a tall hedge of arbutus, till suddenly he found his flight 
again arrested by the wall. 

Stay! What was that? A door! Yes, the very door by 
which ho had entered a few hours previously. Trembling 
from head to foot, he tried the lock. It yielded to his 
pressure, and with one wild, cat-like spring, he bounded 
into the dark street which led to the Mouski. Closing the 
massive oak postern after him, he rushed onward, casting 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


55 

terrified glances behind him from time to time as he ran. 
But all was still; and the noise of his footsteps was the only 
sound which disturbed the quiet hour of dawn. Gradually 
he slackened his speed, and, turning down into a dark side- 
street, cautiously threaded his way among the maze of nar- 
row passages and by-ways of the Hebrew quarter. At last 
he arrived at the gate of the Esbekieli Gardens, and a few 
minutes afterward reached the Hotel Shepheard. Ten 
minutes later he was seated in his own room, hardly able to 
realize that he was, for the moment, at any rate, out of 
danger. 

Te remain at Cairo was out of the question. This last 
adventure was likely to involve more serious consequences 
than any of his previous scrapes. Seizing a time-table, he 
discovered, to his unspeakable relief, that a steamer bound 
for Bombay was leaving Suez the very same day. He hur- 
riedly packed up his belongings, and, summoning the por- 
ter, informed him that he had been called away on matters 
of the utmost importance, and ordered his trunks to be con- 
veyed without delay to the railway station. 

That afternoon at four o^clock a majestic steamer of the 
Peninsular and Oriental Company weighed its anchor at 
Suez, and proceeded down the Bed Sea. She carried 
among the passengers on board Count Frederick von Wald- 
berg, who had been fortunate enough to escape arrest for 
the murder of M. Pasha^s second wife. 


CHAPTER V. 

MAKING NEW ACQUAINTANCES. 

Frederick's fellow-passengers on board the mail steamer 
comprised the usual contingent of Calcutta and Bombay 
merchants; of judges, collectors, and other members of the 


56 


A SEEVANT OF SATAN. 


Indian Civil Service en route to rejoin their posts on the 
expiration of their leave of absence, and of a considerable 
sprinkling of military men, some of whom were on their 
way to the East for the first time. There were also quite a 
number of ladies and young girls who had been spending 
the hot season in England, and who were returning for the 
winter to their husbands and fathers. Besides these, there 
were several Parsee and other native traders, who, having 
been welcomed as princes and nabobs at Paris, and else- 
where in Europe, found it difficult to reconcile themselves 
again to the contemptuous treatment which even the hum- 
blest British subaltern deems it his duty to extend to the 

black men.'^ 

For the first three days after leaving Suez, Frederick 
failed to put in an appearance either at table or on deck, 
and remained most of the time in the seclusion of his own 
cabin. His nerves had been rudely shaken by the exciting 
scenes attending his departure from Cairo, and he felt a 
cold shiver run down his back when he thought of the terrible 
fate that would have been his lot had he fallen into the 
hands of the janizaries and eunuchs of M. le Pasha. With 
all its veneer of civilization, Egypt was then, and still is to 
this day, an essentially oriental country. The mysteiues 
of the harem are still as dark and shadowy as in days of 
yore; and notwithstanding all that may be said to the contra- 
ry, neither justice nor police legislation has ever succeeded 
in penetrating the Zenana. Within its walls, the pasha, or 
bey, especially if he be wealthy and infiuential, is absolute 
master of life and death of the inmates. He is accountable 
to no one for what goes on in his harem; and the stranger 
who dares to commit the unpardonable offense of invading 
its sanctity must be prepared to face either death or the 
most horrible forms of mutilation and torture. 

Of remorse for the death of the pasha^s second wife, 
Frederick felt none. He had strangled her in self-defense; 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


57 


and, although he had no intention of killing her at the 
time, yet he considered that she fully merited her fate. He 
was equally indifferent as to what had become of the 
princess. His enthusiasm had given way to feelings of 
anger against her for causing him to incur so terrible a 
danger. It is evident, however, [that she must have suc- 
ceeded in giving some satisfactory explanation to the pasha, 
both as to the presence of a stranger in her apartments, and 
as to the death of his second wife, for she is alive to this 
day, and neither increasing age nor corpulency had had 
the effect of putting a stop to her adventures, which from 
time to time furnish a piece of gossip, seasoned highly 
enough even for the |jaded palates of the Cairenes. Her 
husband, the pasha, expired somewhat suddenly a few years 
ago, and she has not since remarried. 

On the fourth day of the voyage, just as the vessel was 
steaming past the barren island of Perim, Frederick, who 
by this time had entirely recovered, made his way on deck, 
and, with a cigar in his mouth, leaned against the bulwarks, 
watching signals which were being displayed from the mast- 
head of the fort. He was just about to turn away and to 
stroll forward for the purpose of inspecting the strange as- 
sortment of native deck passengers bound for Aden, when 
he was accosted by a handsome young Englishman, who re- 
quested the favor of a light for his pipe. A conversation 
sprang up between the two, during the course of which 
Frederick discovered that his new acquaintance was a 
wealthy young guardsman, Sir Charles Montgomery by 
name, who was on his way out to take up a staff appointment 
at Calcutta. The name of General von Waldberg was not 
unknown to the baronet, and he therefore had no hesitancy 
about introducing Frederick not only to his fellow-officers, 
but also to most of of the other prominent passengers on 
board. The young count soon became a great favorite, 
especially with the ladies. Much of his time, however, was 


68 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


spent in the smoking-room on deck, playing cards with Sir 
Charles, and some four or five of the latter^s messmates. 
During the first two days Frederick lost heavily, which he 
could ill afiord, for, after paying his hotel bill at Cairo, 
and purchasing his passage for Bombay, he had found 
that his money was almost exhausted. On the third day, 
however, his spell of bad luck came to an end, and from 
that time forth his winnings were considerable. FTo mat- 
ter what the game might be, his hand was invariably 
such as to arouse the envy and admiration of all beholders. 
Both Sir Charles and two other of the officers lost large 
sums to him, and at length one night, on rising from the 
card-table, the baronet was sliarply taken to task by one of 
his fellow-losers, a Captain Clery, who inquired, with some 
asperity, whether he was sure of ^^that dused German 
fellow. 

What do you mean? What on earth are you driving 
at, my dear Clery? What should I know more about him 
than you do yourself? There is no doubt about his being 
the son of old General von Waldberg, whose name you 
are just as well acquainted with as I am.’’ 

That is just what puzzles me,” replied the captain. 

How can you explain the fact that a man of his station 
and military training should be here on board a Bombay- 
bound steamer, instead of being with the German Army be- 
fore Paris? There is something very fishy and queer about 
him.” 

I don’t agree with you one bit,” retorted Sir Charles. 
‘^1 think he is a very nice fellow — remarkably bright and 
amusing, and exceedingly wide awake and clever.” 

Too clever by half,” muttered Captain Clery, savagely 
twisting his heavy blonde mustache. I am going to watch 
his game. I don’t believe he plays fair. It isn’t natural 
that he should win whenever there is a heavy stake on the 


A SEKVANT OF SATAN. 


59 


table. I believe he is simply plucking us like so many blue- 
necked pigeons.^' 

Had Frederick obtained any inkling of the purport of 
Captain Clery's remarks about his extraordinary run of luck, 
or was it mere coincidence that he lost twenty guineas at 
ecarte on the following afternoon? Be this as it may, the 
fact remains that during the rest of the voyage he seized 
various pretexts for absenting himself from the card-table, 
and devoted his whole time to a very lovely girl, Florence 
Fitzpatrick by name, to whom he had been presented by 
Sir Charles. Her father, who hailed from County Cork, 
held a high command in the Army of the Guicowar,^^ or 
King of Baroda, and had made the acquaintance of General 
von Waldberg some years previously at Vienna. The old 
count had not only treated him with much kindness and 
consideration, but had also obtained him facilities for at- 
tending the annual maneuvers of the Prussian and Austrian 
Armies. He was therefore delighted to have an opportunity 
of making some return for the courtesy shown to him by 
Frederick's father, and warmly pressed the young man to 
visit him at Baroda. 

About a fortnight after landing in India, just as Fred- 
erick was beginning to grow’ heartily sick of Bombay, he re- 
ceived a letter from Colonel Fitzpatrick reminding him of 
his promise to spend a few weeks at Baroda, and urging 
him to come up at once so as to be in time for a big tiger- 
hunt which was about to take place. Accordingly, on the 
next day, having telegraphed to the colonel to announce 
his impending arrival, he started on his journey up country. 


60 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


CHAPTER VI. 

FETTEKS DIFFICULT TO SEVER. 

Baroda is, without exception, one of the most interesting 
. and picturesque cities in India. It is perched on the lofty, 
precipitous banks of the River Wishwamitra. Large marble 
staircases lead down to the water’s edge, and above them 
rise thousands of minarets, bell towers, temples, kiosks, and 
pagodas half screened here and there by masses of dark 
green foliage. 

Frederick met with a very hospitable reception on his ar- 
rival at Colonel Fitzpatrick^s comfortable bungalow. He 
could not help being touched by the heartiness of welcome 
extended to him, and Florence appeared to him more charm- 
ing and beautiful than ever. 

As in duty bound, the colonel immediately took steps to 
notify the Guicowar of Frederick's presence in the capital, 
and a few days afterward received an intimation that his 
highness would be glad to grant Count von Waldberg the 
honor of an audience. Accordingly, on the appointed day, 
Frederick, accompanied by Fitzpatrick, drove to the royal 
palace, and after traversing numerous halls and gorgeous 
apartments thronged ’with courtiers, found himself in the 
presence of the Guicowar, to whom he was introduced with 
due form and ceremony. 

The first moments of the interview were passed almost in 
silence. Then the Guicowar, addressing Frederick in Eng. 
lish, declared that he was happy to receive the son of sc 
illustrious a soldier and statesman as General von Waldberg, 
and bade him consider himself at home in his dominions^ 


A SEKVANT OF SATAN. 


61 


adding that he would do all that lay in his power to render 
Frederick's sojourn in Baroda as agreeable as possible. The 
Guicowar wore a red velvet tunic, over which was spread a 
profusion of magnificent jewels. His turban was adorned 
with an aigrette of diamonds, among which sparkled the 
famous Star of the South.^^ He was at the time a man of 
about thirty-five years of age and of tall and commanding 
stature. His complexion was tolerably clear, and his strongly 
marked features at once gave a perfect idea of this singular 
man, who to extreme gentleness in every-day intercourse 
united the most atrocious cruelty on many other occasions. 
The origin of the dynasty of the Guicowars is very interest- 
ing. Their name, Guicowar, of which they are so ex- 
tremely proud, signifies in the Mahratta language, Keeper 
of Cows,^^ and they are fond of tracing their descent to a 
family of ^‘Koumbis,^^ or peasants. 

After a time hookhas, with jeweled amber mouthpieces, 
were brought in, and both the colonel and Frederick, follow- 
ing the example of the Guicowar, began to smoke in true ori- 
ental fashion. Meanwhile a number of pretty girls, covered 
with trinkets and attired in thin chemises, had stepped into 
the room. They were bayaderes, or dancing girls, who 
played, sang, and danced for the entertainment of the Gui- 
cowaFs guests, moving with all the languid voluptuousness 
peculiar to the East. These privileged individuals are al- 
lowed to come and go as they please in the royal palace, as 
if to make up for the absence of the ladies secluded in their 
Zenana. When, at the close of the audience, which had 
lasted about two hours, Frederick at length took leave of his 
dusky highness, he was thoroughly enraptured with all he 
had seen. The Court of the Guicowar is the only one in 
India which has preserved down to the present time the 
customs of the middle ages in all their primitive splendor, 
and during his stay at Baroda, Frederick had numerous op- 
portunities of admiring the extreme luxury and lavish mag- 


62 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


nificence of ceremonies which are not to be witnessed any- 
where else in the world. 

Frederick soon began to feel as if he were a member of 
the colonels family. The old gentleman treated him like a 
son, and was never tired of introducing him to all his friends 
and acquaintances. One morning he proposed that they 
should call together on a Hindoo lady, the widow of a great 
dignitary, and whose wealth was enormous. Being free of 
control and of advanced notions, she was fond of frequent- 
ing good European society, and would, so the colonel de- 
clared, be delighted to make Count von Waldberg^s acquain- 
tance. The opportunities of entering the house of a lady 
of great fortune and high caste in India are exceedingly rare, 
for the rules of the Zenana are so strict and so full of deeply 
rooted prejudices that even widows, proverbially forward, 
seldom dare to break through them. Frederick, therefore, 
declared in reply that he would be much pleased to avail 
himself of the colonehs offer. 

The widow received them in a magnificently decorated 
room. Her face was partly vailed by a rose-colored silk 
scarf, and her dress was literally ablaze with diamonds, ru- 
bies, and gold. She was a woman of between forty and 
fifty years of age, very dark, and with piercing coal-black 
eyes. When the colonel and his young friend entered, she 
quickly rose from the divan, and having shaken hands, 
with them both in European fashion, invited them to take 
seats on either side of her. She began by thanking Colonel 
Fitzpatrick for having brought Count von Waldberg to see 
her, and then, turning to the latter, added graciously that 
she would be ^^at home^^ to him whenever he might deign 
to call for the purpose of cheering her lonely life by his 
welcome presence. Frederick assured her that he would 
frequently avail himself of her permission, '’and the conver- 
sation then turned to European topics ‘and to social scandal 
both at home and abroad, concerning which the widow ap- 


A SEKVANT OF SATAN. 


63 


peared to know much more than might reasonaoiy have 
been expected from a Hindoo lady living in the seclusion of 
a Baroda Zenana. 

Frederick could not help noticing the very marked im- 
pression that he was producing on the widow. She address- 
ed herself almost exclusively to him, and her piercing eyes 
hardly ever left his face. She insisted on their staying 
until nightfall, and when Frederick pleaded some urgent 
business appointment she prevailed on Frederick to allow 
the colonel to depart alone and to remain behind, at any 
rate until it was time for the city gates to close. The heat 
being intense indoors, the widow shortly afterward made a 
proposal that they should adjourn to the gardens of her pal- 
ace, and conducted him along a winding path sheltered 
from the glare of the sun by the dense foliage of the syca- 
more trees to a fairy-like kiosk, built on a kind of rocky 
promontory, which seemed to hang out over the river. A 
gentle breeze made its way through the closed lattices of 
the windows, and a pink marble fountain perfumed the at- 
mosphere with its jet of rose-water. 

Frederick had entered this charming lum retiro a free 
man. When he left it he was enthralled by fetters which 
he would find it difficult to sever. 

He had been about four months at Baroda when one 
morning as he was in the act of mounting his pony to 
ride over to pay his customary visit to the widow a diminu- 
tive black boy stealthily slipped a note into his hand. 
Hastily turning round Frederick recognized the grinning 
features of Florence's little page, who, after making a pro- 
found salaam, disappeared as fast as his legs would carry him. 
Putting his horse at a walk the young count opened the let- 
ter and read the following words: 

I will be this evening, at dusk, in the wood adjoining 
our bungalow, near the little temple of Jain. Meet me 
there. I must speak to you alone and without delay. I 


64 


A SEBVANT OF SATAN. . 


have a communication to make to you of such importance 
that our lives are endangered thereby. Oh, my love, my 
love! Why are you so cruel?’' 

With a stifled curse Frederick crushed the note in his 
hand and thrust it into one of the outside pockets of his 
jacket. Then, giving his unfortunate pony a vicious dig 
with his spurs, he started ofl at a sharp canter, and flfteen 
minutes later he alighted at the palace of the widow, who, 
having become insanely jealous, was making his life a per- 
fect burden to him. 

On that particular morning she was more than usually 
fractious and exacting, and it was only by playing the part 
of an enthusiastic and passionate lover that he could in any 
way pacify her. When at length he reached home he was 
in a state of exasperation bordering on frenzy. Flinging 
himself upon the couch in his room he gave way to a most 
violent fit of rage. Suddenly remembering Florence’s note 
he put his hand into his pocket, with the object of reading it 
once more. The letter, however, was gone. It was in 
vain that he turned all his pockets inside out; the note had 
disappeared. This caused him a moment of anxiety, but 
on second thought he remembered that it bore neither 
signature nor address, and, taking it for granted that it had 
dropped from his pocket while riding, he dismissed the sub- 
ject from his mind. 

Shortly after sundown he started to walk through the 
wood to the little temple of Jain where Florence had re- 
quested him to meet her. It was a lovely and romantic 
spot. The small temple, built of delicately chiseled stone 
forming a kind of open trellis work, was surmounted by 
nine little carved domes and tiny fretted minarets. All 
round the building rose half-broken columns, the ruins of a 
mosque, while huge trees covered the spot with deep shade, 
and Barbary figs, cactuses and poisonous euphorbias en- 
veloped the ancient stones. Thousands of parrots and 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


65 


humming birds dwelt in th^branches of the sycamores and 
palms and flew off at the slightest sound. The place was 
very lonely, and as he approached it there was no sound 
save the babble of a brook whispering among tall rushes and 
lotus plants to be heard in the quiet evening air. 

Florence, who had been sitting on the fragments of the 
basalt column, rose to her feet as she saw him coming, and 
advanced toward him with outstretched hands. She had 
been a very beautiful girl a few months previously, but the 
brilliant pink color, which was one of her chief charms, had 
now given place to a sickly pallor. Her cheeks were hag- 
gard and drawn and her soft brown eyes had a sad and 
hunted expression which was very painful to see in one so 
young and fair. 

^^Fred,^^ exclaimed she, as he took her hands in his and 
bent to kiss her cheek. I cannot bear this any longer. 
You promised me long ago that you would talk to my 
father! Why donT you do so now? The time has come! 
I have asked you to come here to-day to tell you that soon I 
shall be unable to conceal my shame any longer. Already 
now I tremble every time my dear father looks at me, and I 
have no strength left to carry on this horrible deceit any 
longer. 

As she said this she leaned her head on her lover^s 
shoulder and sobbed bitterly. 

The expression on Frederick's face became very dark, 
now that her face was hidden against his breast and that she 
could no longer see him. He bit his lips savagely and his 
eyes flashed with anger. Here was a pretty state of things. 
What was he to do ? She must be pacifled with new prom- 
ises and induced to wait till he could And means to flee 
once more before the storm which he seemed to call forth 
Avherever he went. He tried to compose his features and to 
soften the tones of his voice. Drawing the weeping girl 
closer to him he murmured, gently: 


66 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


‘^Look here, Florence, you must not give way like this! 
You only hurt yourself and pain me. You know how 
doubly precious your life is to me now. Do not doubt me! 
Believe me, I am acting for the best. You shall be my 
wife long before many days are passed and long before there 
is any danger of discovery. You are nervous and low- 
spirited, and exaggerate the difficulties of our situation. I 
adore you I That ought to satisfy you, together with the 
knowledge that I will guard you from any misfortune 
and trouble. Cheer up, darling! Better times are com- 
ing. Have patience but a little longer. 

As he said this they both gave a sudden start of terror. 
Behind them in the thicket they heard the noise of a 
broken twig and the rustle of a dress. Florence, in an 
agony of fright, tore herself from his embrace and dis- 
appeared in the direction of her father^s bungalow, exclaim- 
ing as she rushed off: 

God help us! We are discovered 

Frederick, turning toward the tangled bushes whence 
the sound had proceeded, found himself face to face with 
the widow. 

The latter presented a truly awful appearance as she ad- 
vanced toward him. Her black eyes were distended with 
fury, and her face, from which the vail had fallen, was dis- 
torted by a cruel and mocking smile. 

Is that the way you keep your troth to me, you miser- 
able scoundrel?’^ screamed she, clutching hold of Frederick's 
arm. ^‘Is that my reward for the love of which I have 
given you so many proofs? Is that the return for the bounty 
I have heaped upon you — for all my lavish generosity?’^ 
Silenced exclaimed Frederick, ^^and cease to taunt me 
about your gifts and presents. They have been purchased 
dearly enough in all conscience. I have never given you 
the right to control my actions. Although I may be a 


A SEEVANT OF SATAN. 


67 


mere boy compared to you^ yet I am old enongli uO take 
care of myself. 

that it, then? So I am too old for you! You dare 
to let me see that all your pretenses of love were only due to 
your greed for my wealth! The widow is good enough to 
furnish you with money and to help you to pay your numer- 
ous debts! But' you require something younger, lovelier, 
and more attractive than I am, to satisfy your passions. 
Frederick muttered a terrible oath. 

wonder, she continued, ^^what your friend Col. 
Fitzpatrick will say when I inform him how you have be- 
trayed his hospitality and dishonored his daughter. As 
there is a heaven above us, I swear to take such a revenge, 
both on you and upon your light-oMove, that you will live 
to curse the day on which you were born.-^^ 

Frederick, exasperated beyond all expression, shook her 
hand roughly off his arm, saying as he did so: 

^‘Do anything you please, but be silent now! You have 
said more than enough ! I have done forever with your- 
self, your money, and the very questionable charms of your 
acquaintance! Good-evening.^^ 

Turning his back on her, he was about to effect his re- 
treat when the frantic woman bounded toward him and 
clutched him by his coat with such violence that he nearly 
lost his balance. 

Thief, coward, traitor! You shall not leave me thus!^^ 
hissed the widow through her clenched teeth. 

Almost blind with rage, Frederick caught her by both 
arms and pushed her from kirn with such brutality that she 
fell backward, striking her head as she did so on the jagged 
edge of a broken marble column. The young man at- 
tempted to raise her from the ground, but she lay back life- 
less on the greensward. 

Trembling with fear, Frederick put his hand to her 
heart. It had ceased to beat. For the second time within 


68 


A SEKVANT OF SATAN. 


the space of six months Frederick had become a murderer. 
The full horror of the situation flashed through his mind 
like a streak of lightning. He must leave Baroda at once. 
But how was he to do so without money? Not a moment 
was to be lost, and without casting a look behind him he 
hurried toward the city, leaving the corpse of his victim 
lying among the ruins of the temple, with her poor livid 
face and wide-open eyes, still distorted by passion, turned 
upward toward the dark heavens, where the crescent of 
the new moon was rising. 

Half an hour later Frederick presented himself at the 
gate of the widow^s palace and asked to see her. The ser- 
vants replied that their mistress had gone out two hours 
previously and that she was expected back every minute. 
If his excellency would take the trouble of walking up stairs 
he might wait for her in her boudoir. Shortly afterward 
Frederick came down stairs again, and handing the servant 
a card for the widow declared that, being pressed for time, 
he was unable to wait any longer. 

He then hastened to his hotel and locked himself up in 
his room, determined to pack up his belongings and And 
an excuse for leaving Baroda the next morning. He was 
not short of money now, for, emptying his pockets on the 
table, he sat for some moments gazing at a heap of gold 
pieces and jewels which must have amounted to a value of 
over several -thousands of pounds. Locking this treasure 
in a small trunk, he was just about to change his clothes for 
evening dress when there was a loud knock at the door. 
Frederick started and looked helplessly around him before 
hoarsely exclaiming: 

^^Who is there 

It is I,'^ replied the voice of Col. Fitzpatrick. Open 
the door, my dear boy. I want to speak to you.^^ 

Somewhat reassured, Frederick hastened to admit the 
colonel, who, throwing himself on a chair, exclaimed; 


A SEKVANT OF SATAN. 


69 


terrible thing has happened. You will be horribly 
shocked. Our poor old friend, the widow, has been found 
murdered near the ruins of the Temple of Jain, and 
without noticing the ashy hue of Frederick's face he con- 
tinued; Her assassin was captured just as he was attempt- 
ing to remove from her corpse the jewels which she wore. 
The whole town is in an uproar about it, and the culprit 
was nearly torn to pieces by the people when he was taken 
through the streets on his way to the prison. 

You say her murderer is captured 



KOBBIKa THE MUKDERED WIDOW. 

^^Yes,^^ answered the colonel, and a villainous, hang-dog 
looking fellow he is, too — a member of some of those 
wandering tribes of beggars who infest our part of the 
country — and no mercy will be shown to him.-^^ 

Frederick instantly realized that it was necessary for his 
safety that he should remain at least some days longer at 
Baroda, so as not to arouse, by his sudden departure, sus- 
picions which had, so luckily for him, taken another direc- 
tion, and, coolly finishing his toilet, he accompanied the 


70 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


colonel to a dinner party at the bungalow of the English 
political resident. 

Three days afterward Frederick received an invitation 
from the Guicowar to be present at the execution of the 
widow^s murderer, who was condemned to undergo the 
punishment of death by the elephant.'’^ 

This punishment is one of the most frightful that can 
possibly be imagined. The culprit, secured hand and foot, 
is fastened to the elephant’s hind leg by a long cord passed 



EXECUTION BY ELEPHANT. 

round his waist. The latter is urged into a rapid trot 
through the streets of the city, and every step gives the 
cord a -v iolent jerk which makes the body of the condemned 
wretch bound on the pavement. On arriving at the place 
of execution he is released, .and by a refinement of cruelty a 
glass of water is given to him. Then when he has sufilci- 
ently recovered to feel the throes of death his head is placed 
upon a stone block, and the elephant executioner is made 
to crush it beneath his enormous foot. 


A SEKVANT OF SATAN. 


71 


Up to this juncture Frederick, though very pale, had re- 
mained standing behind the GuicowaFs chair, his eyes in- 
tently fixed on the horrible scene which was being enacted 
before his eyes. But at the moment when the head of the 
poor innocent man was being crushed to atoms under the 
dull thud of the monsteFs foot he uttered a cry of horror 
and sank to the ground in a dead faint. , 


72 


A SEBVANT OF SATAN. 


CHAPTER VII. 

ARREST EVADEDc 

The transcontinental express was speeding on its way 
along the banks of the mighty River Ganges, between Agra 
and Benares, on a dark night at the beginning of the rainy 
season. On reaching Allahabad two English officers 
boarded the train, and on displaying their tickets were 
shown to their places in one of the three roomy compart- 
ments of the luxuriously appointed sleeping-cars. 

The lamp was shaded by a green silk blind, and the her- 
metically closed gauze musquito curtains of one of the upper 
berths indicated that it was tenanted by a sleeping traveler. 

hTot having very far to go, the new-comers stretched 
themselves on their couches without undressing and began 
to converse in a low tone of voice. 

^"Have you heard about this terrible business at Baroda?^^ 
inquired the taller of the two. 

No, replied the other. ^‘I am only just down from 
the hills and have hardly seen a newspaper or spoken to a 
civilized being since we landed at Bombay. 

Well, continued the former, do you remember that 
young German Count whom we had on board on our voyage 
out and who ^ rooked^ us so terribly at cards 

‘^^By Jove, I should think I did! Why, he won a couple 
of hundred off me. Never saw such infernal luck. Wasn’t 
his name Dalberg or Waldberg, or something of the kind!! 
He was awfully spooney on old Fitzpatrick’s pretty daughter, 
now that I think of it. What’s become of the fair Flor-r 
ence?” 

She^s dead, poor girl.’^ 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


73 


^^Dead! You don^t mean to say so! Why, she looked 
the very embodiment of health and happiness on board. 
What on earth did she die of?^^ 


^^Well, the story is a sad one, and makes my blood boil 



FLORENCE FITZPATRICK'S SUICIDE, 
whenever 1 think of it. It appears that old Fitzpatrick in- 
vited Waldberg, whose [father he had met in Europe, to 
visit him at Barona, and had him staying at his house for 


74 


A SEKVANT OP SATAN. 


quite a number of weeks. The only return which the 
cursed scoundrel saw fit to make for all the hospitality and 
kindness lavished on him by the colonel was to betray the 
latter’s daughter under a promise of marriage. 

Unable to conceal her shame any longer, and driven to 
desperation by the sudden disappearance of her lover from 
Baroda, the poor girl committed suicide. She was seen by 
some natives, who were on their way down the river, to 
throw herself into the stream, but on quickly rowing to the 
spot they were unable to find any trace of her body, which 
had evidently been dragged under by the crocodiles which 
infest the Wishwamitra. 

It is said that she left a letter imploring her father’s par 
don, and stating the reasons which had led her to put an 
end to her life. The old man’s grief, I hear, is something 
heart-rending, and in the agony of the first moments, he al- 
lowed the secret of his daughter’s ruin by Count von Wald- 
berg to escape his lips. His frenzy against the latter is 
beyond all description, and he has sworn to hunt him down, 
wherever he may have fied to, to bring him to account.” 

While Captain Clery — for it was he — was in the act of 
thus describing the fate of poor Florence Fitzpatrick, the 
curtains of the upper berth were slightly pushed aside, and 
the head of a man might have been seen to bend forward as 
he listened intently to the story. But at the last words 
thereof he hurriedly closed the curtains again and disap- 
peared from view. 

I This incident had escaped the notice of the two officers, 
and Captain Clery continued as follows: 

But this is not all. There are some very ugly suspicions 
concerning Waldberg in connection with the murder of a 
rich Hindoo widow, who was found dead, with her skull 
fractured, among the ruins of an ancient temple, in a wood 
adjoining the Fitzpatrick bungalow. Her servants have 
since made disclosures which conclusively prove that Wald- 


A SEKVANT OP SATAN. 


75 


berg had been her lover during almost the entire period of 
his stay at Baroda. A quarter of an hour before her body 
was'discovered, Waldberg is said to have visited her apart- 
ments alone, and a considerable amount of money and 
jewels are ascertained to have been abstracted therefrom. 
Moreover, in the letter which Florence left for her father 
she hinted that one of the reasons of her suicide was that 
she believed her lover to have been guilty of a terrible crime 
and declared that her last interview with him had taken 
place near the ruins of the temple above mentioned, just 
before the body of the murdered woman was discovered. 
An unfortunate Bengalee beggar, who w^as found hovering 
over the corpse of the widow as if .about to rob it of its 
jewels, W’as publicly put to death a few days later on the 
charge of having killed her. The execution took place in 
the presence of Waldberg, who is now believed to have 
been the real assassin and who was invited by the Guicowar 
to witness the horrible scene. It appears that the count 
was unable to bear the sight, and that he fainted 
away, creating a great commotion thereby. A few hours 
later he suddenly left Baroda, informing the colonel by 
letter that he was called away on most urgent business. He 
has not been heard of since, but the police are on the look 
out for him.^^ 

A few minutes later the train steamed into the station of 
Allahabad, and the two officers, gathering up their cloaks, 
swords, and other traps, left the sleeping-car. 

As soon as the express had again started on its way to 
Calcutta the man who had displayed such an intense interest 
in the conversation of Captain Clery a»d his friend 
cautiously descended from his berth and began to dress 
himself as noiselessly as possible. Drawing the blind aside 
for a moment from the lamp, the dim light thereof revealed 
the features of Frederick von Waldberg. As soon as he had 
finished dressing he repaired to the cabinet de toilette of the 


76 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


sleeping-car, taking with him a small leather dressing-case. 
When he emerged therefrom a few minutes later it was to 
be seen that he had shaven off the short beard which he 
had allowed to grow during his stay at Baroda. Anxious, 
however, to avoid attracting the attention of the conductor 
to this metamorphosis, he threw alight Inverness cape over- 
coat over his shoulders, pulled the collar over his ears, and, 
drawing his soft felt traveling hat low down over his eyes, 
sat motionless in a corner, apparently fast asleep. 

The morning after his arrival at Calcutta, Frederick took 
passage on a sailing ship bound for Havre. He was dressed 
in the garb of a workingman, and gave his name as Franz 
W erner, and his trade as that of a painter and decorator. 
He informed the skipper that, his health having been 
broken by a long stay in the murderous climate of Bengal, 
the doctor had prescribed the long sea voyage round the 
Cape as his only hope of recovery. He gave this as the 
reason for his preferring to return to Europe by a sailing 
ship instead of by one of the mail steamers via the Suez 
Canal. 

Once again Frederick had succeeded in evading capture 
and arrest for his crimes. 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


77 


CHAPTER VIIL 

A COMPACT WITH ROSE. 


Toward the end of September, 1871, Count Frederick von 
Waldberg, alias Franz Werner, arrived in Paris and took 
up his quarters at a well-known hotel in the Hue de Eivoli 



under the name of Baron F. Wolff. He stated that he had 
just arrived from Japan, a country in which he claimed to 
have resided for over two years. As he spent his money 
very liberally he was taken at his word and treated with 
great respect and consideration at the hotel, where he soon 
made the acquaintance of several American and English 
families who proposed to spend the winter at Paris. Fred- 
erick’s personal appearance had undergone such a change 
during the twelve months which had elapsed since he left 
Paris that there was not much fear of his being recognized 


78 


A SEKVANT OF SATAN 


by any of his former acquaintances. He had grown taller 
and broader, his face was bronzed by the Indian sun, and 
his beard, which he had once more allowed to grow during 
the long sea voyage, caused him to look much older than he 
was in reality. 

One night, some two months after his arrival at Paris, he 
accompanied three of his new acquaintances to the Jardin 
Mabille, at that time a well-known rendezvous of the 
jeunessedoree and of the demi-mondaines of every class. 

He was standing near the orchestra, leaning against one 
of the artificial palm trees loaded with fantastically colored 
glass fruits, each of which contained a tiny gas jet, and was 
watching the gay throng of dancers as they bounded through 
the intricate figures of a disheveled can-can, when suddenly 
a woman, who was conspicuous by the enormous amount of 
satin, lace, and fiowers which she had managed to accumu- 
late about the lower part of her person, and by the ex- 
traordinary scantiness of her corsage, stopped in front of 
him, and with the tip of her satin-slippered foot delicately 
knocked his hat from off his head to the ground. This 
being by no means an unusual feat among the female 
habitues of Mabille, the incident did not attract much at- 
tention and no one noticed the start of surprise and con- 
sternation with which Frederick recognized in the painted 
creature with dyed hair his wife Eose — Countess of Wald- 
berg. 

As his hat fell to the ground, the mocking smile on Eose^s 
face disappeared. Her features assumed a hard, stony ex- 
pression; there was a dangerous glitter in her eyes, and she 
gave one or two convulsive little shivers, as if striving to 
control her feelings. Then, rapidly bending toward him, 
she murmured: 

‘^Come with me, quickly. I must speak to you at 
once."^^ 

Frederick, realizing that the recognition had been mutual 


A SEEVANT OF SATAN. 


79 


and afraid that if he made any attempt to resist she would 
create a disturbance and reveal his identity to all the by- 
standers, followed her without a word. They soon reached 
a part of the gardens which was comparatively deserted, 
and Rose led the way to a small arbor. Throwing herself 
down on one of the wooden benches, she crossed her arms, 
and, looking insolently into her husband’s face, exclaimed, 
in a hard, rasping voice: 

^‘Concealment is useless with me. I would have recog- 
nized you fifty years hence. If love is blind, hatred is not. 
I have a little account to square with you, mon clier, and 
you had better hear me out. I am not surprised at your 
look of alarm when you realized who it was that had kicked 
at your hat. It is unpleasant to be recognized when one 
has so very much to keep dark.^'’ 

What do you mean? I do not understand you.^^ 

Oh, yes, you do. The newspapers have hinted at your 
doings in India, and a man who had made your acquaint- 
ance out there caught sight of one of your portraits in my 
rooms about a fortnight ago. From him — I forget his 
name, but he was an English captain — I heard the whole 
story of your connection with the murder of 

^‘^Hush, for Heaven's sake! not so loud!” interrupted 
Frederick, terror-stricken. ^^You don’t know what you 
are saying! If any one were to hear you!” 

''What do I care if the whole world hears?” retorted 
Rose. " You didn’t take the trouble of thinking about the 
world’s opinion when you thrust your wife out into the 
street in the middle of the night and suffered her to be 
locked up at St. Lazarro as a common street-walker. Every 
dog has its day. Monsieur le Comte, and I mean to show 
you that I can be as cruel and relentless as you are your- 
self.” 

" You surely will not betray me, Rose. You loved me 
once. I am a rich man now^ and can do much for you, if 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


you will only be reasonable/^ exclaimed Frederick, implor- 
ingly. 

He saw that his safety depended on Eose^s silence and de- 
termined to do everything that he could to propitiate her 
and to gain time. She looked up with something like re- 
lenting in her hard blue eyes. The mention of his wealth 
had evidently created some impression on her mercenary 
nature. 

‘^Why, why/^ laughed she, ^^misfortunes seem to have 
rendered you more reasonable, and to have softened your 
temper somewhat. It^s more than they have done for me. 
I donT think that I ever had what you can call un cceur 
sensible (a soft heart), but now I have none left at all. 
Give me money, jewels, an easy life, and I am easy enough 
to manage! A fig for sentiment! It s all bosh!^^ 

Frederick, shuddering at the vulgarity displayed by the 
woman who was still legally his wife, and fearing that his 
friends, missing him, might hunt him up and insist on 
being introduced to his companion, touched her lightly on 
the shoulder, saying: 

Come, Kose, let me take you home. It is impossible to 
talk quietly here, and I have much to say to you. This is 
no place for you.^^ 

The woman shook his hand off, with a sneer. 

How very particular you have become! This place is 
decidedly more pleasant than the ‘*violon^^ (cell at police 
station) or St. Lazarre. It is true that the society which 
one meets at the Jardin Mabille is slightly mixed, but by 
far not so much as in the two places I have just mentioned. 
Come home with me, if you like. It will show you what 
you have made of me — of me, the Countess von Waldberg. 
I wonder if your conscience ever troubles you. You have 
a good deal to answer for, my dear Frederick 

Frederick having dispatched a waiter to fetch her wraps 
from the cloak-room, for she had been sitting all this time 


A SEEVANT OF SATAN. 


81 


with bared shoulders, offered her his arm and led her away. 
As they were stepping forth into the street, the young man 
felt a slight tap on his shoulder, and, turning quickly 
around, found himself face to face with one of his Amer- 
ican friends, who laughingly exclaimed: 

I see you have met your fate, my dear Wolff; I con- 
gratulate you. Don^’t forget that we have those two men 
to lunch at the hotel to-morrow.” 

And with a parting au revoir, baron,^^ he jumped into 
a fiacre, and in a loud, cheery tone of voice, bade the coach- 
man drive home to the Hotel Kensington. A couple of 
minutes later, Frederick, who was greatly put out at thus 
having his alias and his residence made known to Eose, 
hailed a passing cab, and a quarter of an hour afterward 
arrived at her apartments in the Eue de Constantinople. 
They consisted of four rooms, the tawdry ornaments, greasy 
furniture, vulgar attempts at display and false elegance of 
which denoted that their tenant had sunk to the level of a 
third-rate cocotte. 

Before Frederick left Eose that night he succeeded in ex- 
acting a promise from her that as long as he maintained her 
in luxury and gave her all the money she wanted, she would 
make no attempt to reveal his identity or to injure him in 
any way. He handed her a couple of thousand-franc bank- 
notes on his departure, and, promising to call on the follow- 
ing afternoon, strolled back to his hotel. 

‘^She knows too much! She is dangerous! This will 
never dol^^ he muttered to himself, as he walked along 
under the arcades of the Eue de Eivoli. 

He knew full well that as he was able to provide her with 
money, he would not have much to fear from her. She 
was far too careful of her own interests to kill the goose 
that laid the golden eggs by forcing him to take to flight. 
But, unfortunately, he was ever of a spendthrift disposition. 
His tastes, pleasures, and mode of life were extravagant; 


82 


A SEKVANT OF SATAN. 


gold escaped like water through his fingers^ and he realized 
that as soon as the last penny of the money which he had 
abstriicted from the murdered widow^s apartments at Baroda 
had been spent he would find himself powerless to silence 
Kose, whose revelations would inevitably result in a de- 
mand for his extradition on the part of the Anglo-Indian 
Government. 

Several days went by. He had installed Kose in a very 
handsomely furnished apartment on the Avenue de Tlmpera- 
trioe, and had presented her with a carriage and pair, be- 
sides providing her with jewels and handsome dresses. It 
became noised abroad among the demi-monde that she had 
become the mistress of a wealthy Austrian named Baron 
Wolff, and both Frederick and Eose were careful to avoid 
any allusion to the real relationship which existed between 
them. 

Eose found that by means of a few judicious taunts and. 
threats she was able to get anything she wanted out of him. 
Of love between this curiously assorted couple there was 
none, and with each additional demand for money on her 
part the hatred and loathing with which he regarded her 
increased. 

One evening, about a month after his meeting with Eose 
at the Jardin Mabille, Frederick entered her drawing-room 
half an hour before dinner, carrying in his hand a large 
bouquet of gardenias and white lilac. It was her birthday, 
and after having duly congratulated her he handed her a 
blue velvet box, which she opened with a cry of delight. 
It contained a bracelet composed of superb sapphires which 
a few months previously had figured on the wrist of the 
murdered widow at Baroda. Kissing her hand with old- 
fashioned courtesy, Frederick clasped the jewel round Eose's 
shapely arm, and then led her before one of the huge mirrors 
which gleamed here and there IVetween the plush hangings 
of the luxuriouslv appointed room. They were indeed a 


A SEEVANT OF SATAN. 


82 


handsome couple as they stood there gazing at their reflec- 
tions in the glass. Eose was now dressed in perfect taste, 
and her pale-blue satin dinner dress set off her beauty to 
perfection. Suddenly she looked up at him with a mock- 
ing smile, and exclaimed, with a sneer: 

‘'What a charming pair we are to be sure! No wonder 
we love each other so tenderly. 

They remained a long time at table that night, sipping 
their wine, and for a wonder chatting peacefully and pleas- 
antly. Suddenly Eose jumped up and exclaimed: 

“By the by, Frederick, I must show you a letter which 
I received to-day. There is a kind of East Indian nabob 
who is staying here at the Grand Hotel. He has seen me at 
the opera, and writes to make me the most dazzling pro- 
posals,^^ added she, cynically. 

It was one of Eose^s chief delights to show her husband 
what she had now become; and without giving him time to 
say a word she ran lightly out of the room in quest of the 
letter. 

Hardly had she disappeared behind the portiere which 
hung before the door than Frederick, who had suddenly 
grown very pale, took from his waistcoat-pocket a small 
cut-glass bottle filled with a colorless and transparent fiuid. 
Bending over the table, he dropped part of its contents in 
the half-finished glass of green chartreuse which stood in 
front of Eose^s plate. With an almost supernatural cool- 
ness he shook the mixture, so as to amalgamate it properly, 
and then sank back into his chair and lit a cigar, as if to 
give himself what the Fr^ch call a “countenance.'’^ 

At this moment Eose reappeared, holding in her hand an 
open letter. 

“ Let me read this to you. It will show you that if you 
donT behave I can do without you, sir,^^ she said. 

“Nonsense, Eose! What pleasure can it afford you to be 
always teasing me? You are not half so bad as you try to 


84 


A BEKVAIST OF SATAN. 


make yourself out to be. Here, let me drink your health 
again. That will be much more to the purpose!’^ 

Eose laughed a harsh, unlovely laugh, and seizing hold 
of her glass clinked it against her husband^s and tossed the 
liquer down her throat with a cranerie which showed 
that she was not afraid of a stiff drink I 

What a peculiar taste this chartreuse has,^^ she said, as 
she threw herself back in her chair. 

Frederick laughed rather uneasily. 

You swallowed it too quickly. It is a pity, for it is 
good stuff, and I prefer taking mine more quietly, con- 
tinued he, raising his own glass to his lips. 

feel awfully jolly to-night, exclaimed Eose, jumping 
up from her chair again and beginning to restlessly pace 
the floor. We ought to go out. Why donT you take me 
to some theater? Oh! it^s too late for that! Let us go to 
my boudoir and have some music; it will remind us of past 
times. 

She left the room, beckoning him to follow. He did so, 
but as soon as she rose from the table he quietly pocketed 
the glass from which she had been drinking. He found 
Eose in the act of opening all the windows in her boudoir. 
She was unusually flushed, and he noticed that the pupils 
of her bright blue eyes were greatly contracted. This gave 
her so strange and wild a look that he started back as she 
turned toward him. 

How oppressively hot it is to-night, Frederick !^^ said she, 
in a muffled voice, and breathing heavily. 

Why, no; it is not warmer th^fn usual. You must have 
been drinking too much, Eose. Compose yourself. Come 
here and lie down on the sofa, while I play you some of 
your favorite melodies.’^ 

Saying this, he sat down at the piano and began to play 
at random, watching her intently all the time as she flitted 
about the room. At the end of a few minutes she flung 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


85 


herself clown on a lounge and closed her eyes. She breathed 
more heavily than before, and from time to time passed her 
hand across her forehead, which was bathed in cold perspi- 
ration. 

All at once she opened her eyes again. They were now 
dilated as if by pain. 

Frederick, she cried, in a low, oppressed kind of tone, 
'^please come here. I am not feeling well. I wish you 
would give me a glass of water.^^ 

He walked to a side table and brought her a large glass 
filled to the brim with iced water, which she drank eagerly. 

am so sleepy, murmured she, lying down again on 
the cushions. 

Frederick sat down near her on the edge of the lounge, and 
watched her curiously. Her face had assumed a cadaverous 
aspect, and now and again she shuddered from head to foot. 
She appeared to be suffocating, and there was a bluish tint 
round her drawn mouth and sunken eyes. Frederick did 
not move. His face was nearly as white as that of his vic- 
tim. But he made no attempt to help or to assist her. He 
cruelly, and in cold blood this time, allowed the poison to 
take definite hold of her system, and his pitiless eyes re- 
mained fastened on her distorted face without once relent- 
ing. 

G-radually her breathing became less and less audible, 
and a few moments later it had entirely ceased. Placing his 
hand to her bosom he convinced himself that the beating 
of the heart had stopped forever. 

Then arising from the couch he calmly removed his pic- 
ture from its place on the table, and then, loudly ringing the 
bell, he summoned the servants. 

The violence of the peal brought two or three of them to 
the door. They found Baron Wolff apparently in a state of 
extreme excitement, trying with all his might to revive 
their mistress as she lay unconscious on the sofa. 


86 


A SEKVANT OF SATAN. 


Quick! For Heaven^s sake! Eun for a doctor! Mad- 
am is very ill. She is in a fit!^^ exclaimed he, wringing 
his hands. 


CHAPTEE IX. 

ARKESTED. 

Two nights afterward, as Frederick was seated at dinner 
in the large dining-room of the Cafe Eiche, two well dressed 
men walked up to his table and informed him that they 
had a warrant for his arrest on a charge of having mur- 
dered the demi-mondaine, Eose Hartmann. 

It is needless to recount the weary formalities and inter- 
rogatories to which Frederick was subjected during the next 
few weeks. He was, however, clever enough to evade all 
attempts made to discover his real identity, and was en- 
couraged by his lawyer to believe that his conviction on the 
evidence which had been obtained against him would be a 
matter of great difficulty. 

A month later the trial was opened with due form and 
ceremony. As soon as the judges — dressed in their scarlet 
robes lined with ermine — had taken their seats, immediately 
under the life-like picture of the Crucifixion which forms 
so striking a feature of every French court of justice, the 
prisoner was led in between two Gardes de Paris, and 
was conducted to his place in the dock. The court-room 
was comparatively empty, popular interest at that moment 
being centered in the courts-martial which were being held 
at Versailles on the various leaders of the Commune. After 
again stating in reply to the inquiries of the president that 
his name was Frederick Wolff, and that he was of Austrian 
origin, although born in London, his indictment was read. 
It charged him with having administered a poisonous dose 
of morphia to his mistress a femme galante of the name of 


A SEKVANT OF SATAN. 


87 


I^ose Hartmann, a native of Berlin. It further stated that 
an autopsy had revealed the fact that the dose, had been ad- 
ministered in a manner which displayed an intimate knowl- 
edge of the chemical properties of the drug. 

Frederick s counsel thereupon arose and began his speech 
in defense of the young man. He urged that his client 
could have no object in murdering his mistress, to whom he 
was passionately attached, and on whom he had showered 
innumerable and lavish tokens of his affection. He painted 



FREDEKICK ARRESTED FOR MURDER. 


in graphic colors the career of the dead woman in the an- 
nals of the Parisian galanterie, related how Frederick had 
made her acquaintance at the Jardin Mabille, and finally 
wound up by insinuating that, the woman being addicted 
to the use of chloral and morphia as sleeping draughts, her 
death was due to an overdose of the drug, administered by 
her own hand. He concluded his speech by an eloquent 
appeal to the jury to acquit his client. 


88 


A SEKVANT OF SATAN. 


The advocate-general (district attorney) then arose and 
begged leave of the court to summon two witnesses of 
whose existence he had only become aware a few hours pre- 
viously, and whose testimony was calculated to shed a most 
important light on the case. A few moments afterward a 
short, fat man, with spectacles, was shown into the witness- 
box. 

Frederick, who had retained a stoical calm until then, be- 
came deadly pale. 

The witness, after having been duly sworn, stated that 
his name was Christian Martin, and that he was a book- 
seller by trade. He testified that about ten days before the 
newspapers published an account of the murder of Kose 
Hartmann, a young man visited his shop in the Kue de 
Kivoli, and purchased several works on toxicology. He had 
specially asked for the most recent publications on the sub- 
ject of opium and morphine, and explained that he had re- 
cently returned from a long sojourn in the far East, where 
he had become interested in the study of the deleterious 
effects of these drugs among the natives. The bookseller 
added that the stranger had declined to allow him to send 
the books selected, but had insisted on taking them away 
with him in his carriage. M. Martinis attention had been 
specially attracted to the young man by the mention of his 
residence in the Orient, and by the remarkable knowledge 
which he displayed of the properties of hashish, and other 
narcotics used by the Asiatics. He had, however, thought 
no more about the matter until the previous evening, when 
passing in front of the offices of the Figaro, a portrait dis- 
played on the bulletin-board of the newspaper had caught his 
eye. On examining it more closely, he had recognized therein 
the features of the gentleman who had visited his shop some 
weeks previously for the purpose of buying books on toxi- 
cology; and having learned from the superscription that it 
was the picture of Baron"" F. Wolff, Uie suspected mur- 


A SEKVANT OF SATAN. 


89 


derer of Kose Hartmann, he had deemed it his duty to in- 
form the commissary of police of the district ot.the facts 
above mentioned. The latter, knowing that the trial was 
about to begin, had given him a letter to the avocate-general 
and had sent him off post-haste to the Palais de Justice. 



FREDERICK ON TRIAL FOR HIS LIFE. 


The sensation produced by this evidence both on the 
judges and the jury was most prejudicial to Frederick's 
case, which until then had appeared extremely promising. 

But the climax was reached when, a few minutes after- 
w^^4; ^ extremely loud and startling toilet, was 




90 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


ushered into the witness-box. Frederick gazed at her in- 
quiringly, but was unable to recall to mind ever having met 
her before. 

Your name, madam?^^ inquired the president. 

Cora de St. Augustin. 

Your residence 

^^206 Eue Blanche. 

^ ^ Your age 

(After a moments hesitation). f^Nineteen.^^ 

Your profession?’^ 

(A long pause). Premiere danseuse. 

The Judge — Of what theater? Is it of the Grande 
Opera?"" 

(A little longer pause). Non, man President — dn — dn 
Jar din MahiUeP 

This announcement appeared to create a considerable 
amount of amusement in court. 

After furnishing the court with information on all these 
points, ^^Mme. de St. Augustin'" proceeded to relate that 
she had been on terms of great intimacy with Eose Hart- 
mann, whose acquaintance she admitted, after some pressure 
on the part of the president, to having made at St. Lazarre. 
Meeting Eose a few days after the latter"s migration from 
the Eue de Constantinople to the Avenue de PImperatrice, 
she had congratulated her on her altered fortunes, and had 
questioned her about her new Protect eurP Eose, it ap- 
peared, had replied, that, as far as the material advan- 
tages were concerned, ^he had nothing to complain of, 
but that her lover was a peculiar kind of man, with whom 
she did not feel altogether safe, and that, if she listened to 
her presentiments, she would certainly decline to have any- 
thing further to do with him. She added,'" declared the 
fair Cora, ^ I have a queer, uncanny feeling about that 
man. Indeed, I shouldn"t be surprised if I came to grief 
through him some day. Eemember, 7na cliere, if anything 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


91 


ever happens to me, you may depend upon it that he will 
have had something to do with the matter. I believe him 
to be capable of anything, but he is too good a catch, 
financially speaking, to be abandoned until a more desirable 
party turns up/^' 

Then, satisfied with the impression which her remarks 
had produced, the witness turned toward the judges, and 
inquired Avliether ^'ces messietirs^^ had any further ques- 
tions to ask. On receiving a reply in the negative, she 
swept out of the witness-box, and dropping a low courtesy, 
in which she graciously included both the public and the 
tribunal, she passed out. 

Thereupon, the advocate-general arose and commenced his 
argument for the prosecution. He used the evidence of the 
two witnesses who had just been heard by the court with 
crushing effect, and wound up his brilliant and clever per- 
oration by a demand to the jury that they should mete out 
to the prisoner the full penalty of the law. 

The jury then retired, and remained absent about three- 
quarters of an hour. When they reappeared, their fore- 
man, in response to the inquiry of the presiding judge, de- 
clared that their unanimous verdict was to the effect that 
the prisoner was guilty of the murder of Kose Hartmann; 
but that, in view of the purely circumstantial nature of the 
evidence submitted to them, they recommended him to the 
mercy of the court. 

The president, addressing Frederick, asked whether he 
had any reason to put forward why the sentence of the law 
should not be pronounced upon him. 

Amid a profound silence, Frederick answered: 

I can only once more swear by all that I hold sacred 
that I am innocent of the crime laid to my charge. I was 
deeply attached to the poor girl whom I am accused of hav- 
iug murdered, and it^ought to be clear to every one present 


92 


A SEBVANT OF SATAN. 


that I had no possible object to attain in putting an end to 
her days. It is not mercy I demand, but justice.^' 

The president, after consulting with his two associate 
judges, then, in a loud and impressive voice, pronounced 
the sentence of the court, whereby Frederick Wollf^^ was 
condemned to twenty years penal servitude, and to ten 
years more police supervision and loss of civil rights. 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


93 


CHAPTEE X, 

FREDERICK'S PUNISHMENT. 


The judge had scarcely uttered the last words of the sen- 
tence, when Frederick's arms were grasped on either side 
by a stalwart ‘‘ Garde de Paris/' and he was hurried from 



FREDERICK IH HIS CONVICT DRESS. 

the court-room. Instead of being taken back to the “ Mazas" 
House of Detention, where he had been imprisoned until 
then, he was conveyed to “ La Grande Koquette," which he 
was to visit some years later under still more dramatic cir- 
cumstances. 

“La Grande Eoquette." besides containing the cells for 
prisoners under sentence of death, is used as a depot for 
convicts pending their transfer either to the penitentiaries 
or to the penal colonies. 

On arriving within the gloomy walls of this terrible prison. 


94 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


from whose portals none step forth excepting to the scaffold 
or to undergo a long term of disgrace and social death, 
Frederick was taken to the ^^Greffe^^ (register's office). 
There he surrendered the name of Wolff/^ under which 
he had been sentenced, and received instead the numeral 
by which henceforth he was to be designated. From thence 
he was conducted to the barber-shop, where his beard was 
removed and his head shaved. The clothes which he had 
worn until then were now taken away from him, and he 
was forced to assume the hideous garb of a condemned 
prisoner. 

A few days later a special train, consisting of eight rail- 
way carriages, partitioned off into small and uncomfortable 
cells, lighted only by^ ventilators from the roof, steamed out 
of the Gare d^Orleans on its way to St. Martin de Ke. 
Among the number of blood-stained criminals of every 
imaginable category which constituted its living freight, was 
Frederick Count von Waldberg, alias Franz Werner, alias 
Baron Wolff, but now known only as No. 21,003. 

Before proceeding any further, it may be as well to devote 
a few words to an explanation of the somewhat remarkable 
fact that nobody at Paris should have recognized the iden- 
tity of Baron Wolff with the Count von Waldberg, who had 
resided for some months on the banks of the Seine previous 
to the fall of the empire. In the first place, as has been 
already stated, his personal appearance had undergone a 
most remarkable change during his absence in the East; 
and, secondly, the siege by the Germans and the subse- 
quent insurrection of the Commune had so thoroughly dis- 
organized the metropolitan police and judicial administra- 
tions, whose ranks were now filled by entirely new and 
inexperienced men that his success in concealing his real 
rank and station had nothing surprising in it. 

On reaching St. Martin de Ke, Frederick was manacled 
to a repulsive-looking prisoner, and was fastened to a long 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


95 


chain to which some sixty other convicts were attached. 
Escorted by gendarmes with loaded rifles, they were led 
down to the sea-shore and embarked on huge flat-bottomed 
barges or pontoons for conveyance to the ship which lay in 
the offing, which was to be their place of abode for the 
three weary months which would elapse before their arrival 
in New Caledonia. 

The Loire was one of the small fleet of old sailing ships 
which have been fltted up for the transport of convicts to 
Noumea and to Cayenne, and which are nicknamed Les 
Omnibuses du Bagne.'’^ Steam vessels are not used for 
this purpose, as speed is no object, and the voyage to 
France^s penitential colony in Australasia is effected via the 
Cape of Good Hope, instead of by the Suez Canal. The 
lower decks are divided up into a series of large iron cages, 
in which the convicts are imprisoned by groups of sixty. 
These cages are separated from each other by narrow pas- 
sages, along which armed sentinels pace day and night. 
Once every morning, and once every afternoon, the prison- 
ers are brought up on deck for an hour^s airing when the 
weather is flne; but when storms prevail, they are frequently 
conflned in the stifling atmosphere of the lower decks for 
whole weeks at a time.* In front of every cage, hydrants 
are flxed, by means of which, in case of any serious dis- 
turbance, the inmates can be deluged with powerful jets of 
ccld water, and if that prove ineffectual, then with hot 
water. 

A heavy gale was blowing in the Bay when the Loire 
spread its sails to the wind and started on its long and 
dreary voyage. 

A fortnight later the vessel cast anchor in the port of 
Santa Cruz, of the Canary Islands, where a stay of six days 
was to be made for the purpose of shipping the provisions 
which were to last until the arrival of the transport at its des- 
tination. While there, Frederick and three of his fellow-pris- 


96 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


oners, who had formed part of the gang employed one night 
to clean the deck from the dirt occasioned by the embarka- 
tion of some eighty head of cattle and numerous sheep and 
poultry, took advantage of the darkness and of the rough 
weather which prevailed, to slip overboard. The guard- 
boat happened to be on the other side of the ship, and the 
fugitives would probably have reached land and effected 
their escape, had not they suddenly encountered a cutter, 
which was bringing off several of the ship’s officers who had 
been dining on shore. Unfortunately for the convicts, the 
moon, which had been hidden until then by the clouds, 
shone forth for a few minutes and shed its light on the 
shorn heads of the swimmers. The latter immediately 
plunged, in order to avoid detection. But it was too late. 
They had already been caught sight of by the officers. 
The latter having hailed the watch on board the ship and 
called for assistance, then rounded their boat on the fugi- 
tives. Aware of the terrible punishment which awaited 
them if captured, the poor wretches made almost superhu- 
man efforts to escape, and turned a deaf ear to the threats 
of their pursuers that they would fire on them. One by 
one, however, they were run down and dragged on board. 
Frederick alone, who was a magnificent swimmer, continued 
to elude the cutter by swimming under water, coming to 
the surface only from time to time, to take breath. Volleys 
of buckshot swept the spot whenever his head appeared for 
a moment above water; but he seemed to bear a charmed 
life. Suddenly, however, one of the sailors espied him, as, 
miscalculating his distance, he emerged on the surface 
within a few feet of the boat. Quick as lightning, the man 
raised his oar and brought it down with terrific force on 
Frederick's head, rendering him unconscious. 

When Frederick recovered his senses, he found himself 
in a dark cell in the lowest part of the hold, heavily chained, 
and with his head covered with bandages. 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


97 



FREDERICK CAPTURED WHILE ATTEMPTING TO ESCAPE, 



98 


A SEEVANT OF SATAN. 


Four days after leaving the Canary Islands, the attention 
of the convicts was attracted to some rather unusual prep- 
arations which were being made between decks. A detach- 
ment of fifty marines filed in and took up their position 
amidships. At a word of command on the part of their 
officer, they proceeded to load their rifles. Two gendarmes 
who were accompanying the convoy thereupon appeared 
and likewise loaded their revolvers, with a good deal of 
ostentation. A few minutes afterward the warders pasted 
up in each cage an order of the day,^^ signed by the com- 
mander, wherein it was stated that in accordance with a de- 
cision of the court-martial, the four convicts who had 
attempted to escape in the harbor of Santa Cruz were about 
to receive forty lashes of the cat.^’ 

This instrument of torture, which is only used for the 
punishment of prisoners under sentence of penal servitude, 
is composed of five thongs of plaited whipcord, thirty inches 
long and about an inch thick. At the end of each thong 
ai:e three knots, with small balls of lead. The handle is 
about two to three feet long and an inch and a half in diam- 
eter, and is composed of very heavy teak wood. The thongs 
are carefully tarred until they become as stiff and as hard 
as iron, after which they are dipped for several hours in the 
strongest kind of vinegar. 

The officers having assembled, a wooden bench was 
brought in by two of the warders, and thereupon the men 
about to undergo punishment appeared on the scene, 
stripped to the waist and barefooted. The sentence was 
then read aloud by the officer of the watch. 

Convict No. 21,003, the number by which Frederick was 
known, was the first to undergo the punishment. Two 
of the warders seized him, and stretching him at full 
length on the wooden bench, face downward, bound him 
thereto by means of ropes tied round his shoulders, waist, 
and ankles. 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


99 


A brawny prisoner who had volunteered to act as cor- 
rector, now stepped forth from the ranks, seized the ^^cat,'^ 
and began to let it fall heavily and at regular intervals 
on the back and shoulders of the unfortunate Frederick, 
allowing enough time between each blow to make the 
suffering still more acute. The first strokes left long, 
livid stripes on the young man^s white skin. Soon, how- 
ever, the blood oozed forth, and by the time the twentieth 
blow was inflicted, Frederick's back was one mass of lacer- 
ated and bleeding wounds. He bore the cruel punishment 
with Spartan courage, never uttering a complaint or letting 
a moan escape him. But when they untied his bonds "and 
attempted to raise him from the bench, it was found that 
he had become insensible. 

For two weeks after this cruel punishment Frederick lay 
in the ship^s hospital, part of the time in a state of delirium 
brought on by wound-fever. When at length he had re- 
covered sufficiently to be able to leave the infirmary 
his tortur-es began afresh. Both he and the three 
convicts who had attempted to escape with him were 
set to perform the most disgusting and revolting kind 
of work that could be found on a vessel freighted with 
such an enormous cargo of human beings. It is needless to 
describe what these duties were, but it will be sufficient to 
state that they were peculiarly repugnant to Frederick, 
reared as he had been in palaces, and accustomed to every 
form of the most refined and elegant luxury. As a further 
disciplinary measure they were deprived of one of their two 
meals a day. The food on board the transport was execra- 
ble, and for some reason or other none was ever served out 
to the prisoners between the hours of 6 o^clock on Saturday 
morning and 6 o^clock on Sunday evening. 

Frederick bore all these hardships in silence, but became 
more and more embittered against mankind. His heart 
grew as hard as stone. Every slight vestige of good feeling. 


100 


A SEBVANT OF SATAN. 


morality, and humanity disappeared, and by the time 
he arrived in New Caledonia he had become the most des- 
perate and dangerous of all the blood-stained criminals on 
board. 


CHAPTER XL 

ANOTHERVICTIM. 

At last, ninety-three days after her departure from St. 
Martin de Re, the Loire cast anchor in the Bay of Noumea. I 
The town, perched on the slope of a hill, is quite pic- i 
turesque with its flat-roofed white houses that are shaded by 
gigantic cocoanut trees, and half hidden by huge bushes of \ 
a kind of scarlet rhododendron of a singular luxuriance and 
beauty. Owing to the frequence of cyclones and tornadoes i 
no building is more than one-story high, even the church i 
tower having been razed to the ground by a storm which 
took place a short time before Frederick reached the colony. • 

The young man, however, had no opportunity of ex- i 
amining the town more closely. For shortly before midday 
the convicts were placed on barges rowed by naked savages, 
and conveyed to the barren and desolate Island of Non, 
distant about an hour from the city. On landing the con- 
victs were taken to a shed where they were ordered to strip. 
Their bodies were then plentifully besprinkled with the 
most nauseating kind of insect powder, after which they 
were furnished with their new kit, consisting of coarse can- 
vas trousers, jackets and shirts, straw hats, wooden shoes, 
hammocks and dingy-colored blankets. They were then 
locked up by batches of sixty in long, low buildings, the 
small windows of which were heavily barred. 

There they were left without either food or water until 
the following morning. The night was horrible. The most 
impenetrable darkness prevailed, no lantern or any kind of 
light having been provided to dispel the gloom. The 


A SEKVAKT OF SATAN. 


101 


heat and foul odors due to the want of proper ventilation 
were indescribable, and the men, driven almost frantic by 
thirst and hunger, rendered the long, weary hours of the 
night still more hideous with their yells, oaths, and execra- 
tions. At about 2 o^clock in the morning a fearful cry of 
agony rang through the building: 

‘"Help! Help! They are killing me! Let me go, 
cowards! Help for the love of God!’*^- 
; A great silence followed this heart-rending appeal, which 
was only broken by the sound of a few shuddering gasps. A 
few minutes later the pandemonium broke loose again with 
increased violence and continued until morning. When 
day began to pierce through the grated windows the cause 
of the awful cries for help which had made the blood of 
even some of the most hardened criminals run cold became 
apparent. Stretched on the ground, with his open eyes 
distented by pain and terror, lay the dead body of the con- 
vict who during the voyage out had volunteered to act as 
the ""corrector^ on the occasion of the flogging of Frederick 
and of the three men who attempted to escape with him in 
the harbor of Santa Cruz. Death had evidently been caused 
by strangulation, for purple finger-marks were plainly visi- 
ble on the victim^s throat. 

At 6 o^clock the doors were thrown open, and the warders 
ordered the prisoners to file out into the open air. After 
having been ranged in line, the roll was called. The several 
numerals by which the respective convicts were known were 
called forth and responded to by their owners. Suddenly 
there was a pause caused by the failure of No. 21,265, to 
answer the summons. 

""Where the devil is No. 21,265?^^ shouted the head 
warder, in an angry tone of voice. 

The convicts remained silent. 

Fearing that the missing man had escaped, several of the 

gardes-chiousmes^^ (sub-warders) rushed into the building 


102 


A SEEVANT OF SATAN. 


i 


where the prisoners had spent the night, and reappeared a 
few moments later bearing the body of the murdered man. 

Of course the convicts one and all denied any knowledge 
as to how their comrade had come to his death, and as it 
was impossible to discover which of the sixty prisoners had 
been the perpetrator or perpetrators of the deed, a report 
was made to the governor stating that a fight had taken 
place among the newly arrived convicts during the night, in 
the course of which one of their number had met his death. 
To tell the truth, the affair attracted but little attention on 
the part of the authorities. After all, it was but a convict 
the less. As, however, it was deemed necessary to take 
some notice of the matter, the ten prisoners who had the 
largest number of black marks against their name, and 
among whom was Frederick, were sentenced to undergo the 
following punishment. Their hands were tightly secured 
behind their backs and fastened to a chain attached to iron 
rings in the exterior wall of the building in which the mur- 
der had been committed. The chains were sufficiently 
loose to enable them either to squat on the ground or to stand 
upright. But being unable to use their hands to convey 
their miserable pittance of bread and water to their mouths, 
they were forced to bend their faces down to the ground 
in order to seize the bread with their teeth and to lap up the 
water like dogs. 

In defiance of all notions of humanity or decency they 
were left bound in this cruel manner for seven days and 
seven nights, exposed to the weather and unable to defend 
themselves from the bites of the myriads of musquitoes and 
other aggressive insects. 

When, at the end of this week of indescribable torture, 
they were released, five of their number, including Fred- 
erick, were in such a state as to necessitate their being sent 
to the hospital. Frederick, who possessed a wonderfully 
strong constitution and powerful physique, soon recovered. 




] 

\ 




] 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


103 


Two of his companions, however, had their arms paralyzed 
for the remainder of their lives from the effects of this ap- 
palling treatment. 

For two long years Frederick remained on the Island of 
Non, subject to the never-ending tyranny and brutality of 
the jailers and overseers, who are recruited from the very 
lowest ranks of society. The slightest appearance of hesi- 



FREDERICK UNDERGOING PUNISHMENT, 
tation or failure on the part of the convict to submit to 
every caprice of the ^‘chiourme^^ was immediately inter- 
preted as an act of insubordination, and formed the subject 
of daily reports to the superintendent, who responded 
thereto by sending vouchers either for a flogging or for an 
imprisonment during a certain number of days in the dark 
punishment cell, ^ 


104 


A SEKVAT^T of SATAN. 


One day matters came to a climax. Frederick, witli a 
gang of about twelve others, was engaged on the main land- 
ing in breaking stones for the construction of a new road. 
Two warders with loaded rifles kept watch over them. One 
of the two, however, seeing the men quietly at work with- 
drew after a while to a neighboring farm-house, which be- 
longed to an ex-convict who was still under the supervision 
of the police. 

The fate of these liberated convicts is scarcely a happy 
one. For although they are permitted to summon to their 
side the wife, sisters, or children whom they may have left 
behind them in France, or, if they prefer it, to marry some 
female ex-convict, yet their womankind are entirely sub- 
ject to the caprices and passions of the various prison 
functionaries. Even the very lowest sub-warder has it in 
his power to force these unfortunate people to submit to 
his demands, no matter how outrageous their nature may 
be, since any refusal would inevitably entail a denunciation, 
accusing either the husband or wife, or possibly both, of 
acts of insubordination. Needless to add that the word of 
persons who are under police supervision and who are de- 
prived of their civil rights has no w^eight whatsoever when 
opposed by that of a prison ofiicial. 

One of the warders having, as has been stated above, re- 
tired to a neighboring farm-house, his companion sat down 
under the shade of some bushes which grew ar the top of a 
small mound, whence he could exercise a careful watch 
over the men intrusted to his charge. The heat was over- 
powering, and from time to time he refreshed himself with 
long pulls from a suspicious-looking flask which he had 
hidden away in an inside pocket. The liquor, whatever it 
was, instead of rendering him more good-humored and 
tractable, seemed to call forth all the latent savagery of his 
nature. Every time one of the unfortunate convicts at- 
tempted to rest from his work for a few brief moments the 


A SEEVANT OF SATAN. 


105 


brute would force him^ by means of taunts and threats, to 
resume his task. Kot a moment^s respite would he permit 
them for the purpose of slaking their intense thirst with a 
drink of water; and for six long hours, in the very hottest 
part of the day, he kept them exposed without interruptioi? 
to the scorching rays of the tropical sun. 

At length, overcome by the sultriness of the atmosphere 
and by the frequency of his potations, he sank off into a 
deep and drunken sleep, his rifle still loosely lying across his 
knees. Frederick's attention having been attracted thereto 
by one of his comrades, he immediately perceived that the 
moment had arrived for carrying into effect his long- 
cherished project of escape. Quick as lightning he com- 
municated his intention to his fellow-prisoners. A few 
sturdy blows with the hammers which they had been using 
until then for breaking the stones were sufficient to relieve 
them of their waist and ankle chains, and in a moment 
they had overpowered and^ightly bound and gagged their 
still sleeping' warder. Frederick seized his rifle, and ac- 
companied by the others made a bolt for the woods, which 
they were' able to reach unobserved. It was not until an 
hour after nightfall, when they were already several miles 
distant from the spot where they had regained their liberty, 
that the booming of the big guns of the fort at stated in- 
tervals proclaimed the fact to them that their escape had 
become known and that a general alarm had been 
given. 

On becoming aware of this they held a kind of council 
of war, and it was determined that they should scatter in 
groups of two and three, which they considered would b-. 
more likely to enable them to avoid being recaptured. 

The notes left by Prado do not mention the fate of 
those from whom he parted company at the time. It is 
probable that they either were caugxit by the posses of war- 
ders sent in their pursuit or else that they fell into the 


106 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


hands of the Canaks/^ as the ferocious natives of New 
Caledonia are called. The Canaks before deciding as 
to what to do with their prisoners would probably hesitate, 
influenced on the one hand by their appetite for human 
flesh and on the other by their greed for the handsome re- 
ward offered by the Government for the capture^ either 
alive or dead, of runaway convicts. 

For many days Frederick and his two companions wan- 
dered through almost impenetrable forests. They were 
frightened by every sounds by every rustle of a leaf, and 
were dependent for food on the berries, fruits, and roots, 
which they devoured with some apprehension, afraid lest 
they should contain some unknown and deadly poison. 
Everywhere around them they felt that death was hovering. 
The dense foliage of the trees completely hid the sky and 
surrounded them with deep shadows, which appeared full 
of horror and mystery. Large birds flew off as they ad- 
vanced, with a startling flutter of their heavy wings, and 
their only resting-place at night was among the branches 
of some lofty tree. Frequently they had to wade through 
pestilential swamps, in which masses of poisonous snakes 
and other loathsome reptiles squirmed and raised their hiss- 
ing heads against the intruders. Once they were almost 
drowned in a deep lake of liquid mud which was so over- 
grown with luxuriant grasses and mosses that they had mis- 
taken it for terra firma. 

At length, on the twelfth day after their escape, they 
reached, shortly after nightfall, a small coast-guard station. 
The night was very dark and a heavy tropical rain was 
falling. A little after midnight the three men, who had re- 
mained hidden until then among the rocks, made their way 
down the little creek, where the open boat used by the 
coast guards lay at anchor. Gliding noiselessly into the 
water, they swam out to where the tiny craft was rising and 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


107 


falling under the influence of a heavy ground swell. In a 
few moments they were safely on board. 

The tide was going out, and, unwilling to attract the at‘ 
tention of the coast guards by the noise which would attend 
the raising of the anchor, they quietly slipped the cable and 
allowed the boat to drift silently out to sea. 

It was a terrible voyage on which they had embarked and 
must have been regarded as fool-hardy and insane to the 
last degree were it not that to remain on the island meant 
life-long captivity and sufferings so intolerable that death 
would be but a happy release. As soon as they had drifted 
far enough they spread the boat^s single sail to the wind, 
and by daylight were well-nigh out of sight of land. On 
searching the craft they discovered, to their unspeakable 
delight, that a locker in the bow contained a sack of ship^s 
biscuits, while in the stern was a small cask of water, both 
of which had evidently been kept on board by the coast- 
guards for use in case of their being becalmed at any dis- 
tance from their station. It was little enough, in all con- 
science, but to Frederick and to his starving companions it 
seemed the most delicious fare which they had ever tasted. 

Frederick's two fellow-fugitives were men of the lowest 
class. The one was a thorough type of the Paris criminal, 
with a pale face, bleary eyes, and an outrageously flat, 
turned-up nose. His breast was adorned with a tattooed 
caricature of himself, of which he was inordinately proud. 
The other was a miner who had been condemned to penal 
servitude for life for killing his chief in response to some 
violent reproaches which had been addressed to him by the 
latter. 

Without compass, without even a sailor^s knowledge of 
the constellations, they sailed aimlessly before the wind, 
intent only on increasing the distance which already lay be- 
tween them and their abhorred prison. Their only hope was 
that they would be picked up by some passing vessel which, 


108 


A SEEVANT OF SATAN. 


as long as it did not fly the French colors, would certainly 
not deliver them back into the hands of their tormentors. 

They had been sailing along for some four or flve days 
when the water began to giy^ out. Only a little drop re- 
mained, Moreover, there was no protection to be obtained 
from the burning rays of the sun, the reflection of which on 
the blue waters of the Pacific seemed to increase the heat 
tenfold. The three men had agreed to keep the remaining 
drops of water until the very last extremity, and then only 




RESCUE OF FREDERICK AKD HIS FELLOW FUGITIVE. 


to divide it up into equal shares before preparing to under- 
go the terrible death by thirst which stared them in the 
face. Suddenly the ex-miner was seized with convulsions, 
brought on, no doubt, by the terrific heat of the midday 
sun on his unprotected head. When these ceased he started 
to his feet, and, with the yell of a maniac, for such he had 
now become, made a rush for the water cask. Divining his 
intention, Frederick and the Parisian ‘^voyou^^ threw 


A SERVANT OE SATAN. 109 

themselves before him, and a desperate hand-to-hand 
straggle ensued, which was, however, brought to a quick 
end by the madman breaking loose from them and, with a 
cry of Water, waters jumping head foremost into the sea, 
almost capsizing the boat as he did so. 

A moment afterward, and before he had time to come to 
the surface again, the spot where he had disappeared became 
tinged with blood, and the fins of several huge sharks ap- 
peared between the waves. Eaising his eyes to the horizon 
from this terrible scene, Frederick suddenly exclaimed: 

A sail, a sailT^ 


110 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


CHAPTER XIL 

IN LUCK AGAIN. 

About three weeks later, a bark, whose storm-beaten and 
weather-stained appearance showed traces of a long and 
tempestuous voyage, cast anchor in the port of Batavia. 
Among the first to land were a couple of men who, al- 
through dressed in the garb of common sailors, yet dis- 
played the most palpable evidence that they belonged to 
some other sphere in life. They presented a strange con- 
trast to one another. The taller of the two, it was easy to 
see by his well-shaped hands and feet, by his clear-cut fea- 
tures, and by his general bearing, was a gentleman by birth 
and education, whereas his companion had evidently sprung 
from the lower classes. 

Safe at last,^^ muttered the former, who was no other 
than Frederick von Waldberg. As long as I was on board 
that ship, I always had a kind of feeling that we were in 
danger, somehow or other, of being delivered up to the 
French authorities. I can^t help thinking that the skipper 
had his doubts as to the authenticity of the story which we 
told him.^^ 

At any rate, he kept his own counsel about it,^^ replied 
his companion, with a laugh; ‘^^and here we are at last be- 
yond the reach of our friends, the ^gardes chiourmes^ 
(prison warders). Just look at this! How different from 
^ La XoLivelle ! (Xew Caledonia). The very air seems to 
reek with prosperity and wealth. See those houses there. 
How glorious it would be to have the looting of one of 
themF^ 

^‘Hush, you idiot exclaimed Frederick. There must 


A SEKVANT OF SATAN. 


Ill 


be lots of people here who understand French, and I don't 
suppose that you want everybody to know who you are." 

They will find it out soon enough, to their cost," replied 
the other, under his breath, as they strolled on. 

Frederick and his fellow-convict had been in the last 
stage of exhaustion when rescued by the Dutch bark, which 
was on its way from Amsterdam to Java, and during the 
first three days were unable to give any account of them- 
selves. On recovering, however, they informed the skipper 
that they were the solitary survivors of a French vessel en- 
gaged in the Polynesian trade. They asserted that the boat 
had broken loose from the sinking ship before its full com- 
plement of the crew had been embarked, and that, owing 
to the darkness, and to the gale which prevailed, they were 
unable to return to the ship. 

During the time which had elapsed since their break for 
liberty, both their hair and beards had grown, and more- 
over they had taken the precaution to remove from their 
scanty attire all traces which might have revealed the fact 
that it had formed part of the garb of a French convict. 

They now found themselves in a strange country, with- 
out a cent in their pockets, and without any honest means 
in view of obtaining a livelihood. The very clothes on. 
their backs they owed to the charity of the sailors of the 
bark. They applied at several of the great warehouses and 
stores for em*ployment, and, meeting with no success, then 
addressed themselves to the occupants of several of the mag- 
nificent villas in the suburbs, begging for food and money. 
The Dutch, however, are not of a particularly generous na- 
ture. If they err, it is on the side of economy and excessive 
caution. Everywhere Frederick and his companion were 
met with the same response, Apply to your consul." As 
this was about the last person to whom the two ex-convicts 
would have dreamed of addressing themselves, there seemed 
to be every prospect that they would spend the night in the 


112 


A SERVANT OF SATA^ 


open air, and remain both dinnerless and supperless. They 
were just about to turn their steps once more in the direc- 
tion of the port, when suddenly a man who had been watch- 
ing them for some few moments as they wandered aim- 
lessly along, stepped across the street, and inquired in Ger- 
man what they were looking for, and whether he could be 
of any assistance to them. Frederick at once replied in the 
same language that they were destitute and starving, and 
that they were exceedingly anxious to discover some means 
of earning a decent living. 

^^Have you tried any of our merchants and storekeepers?"^ 
asked the stranger. 

Yes,"" replied Frederick; but it is a hopeless task. It 
appears, from what they say, that they all have more em- 
ployees than they know what to do with."" 

How would you like if I were to obtain for you this 
very night the sum of fifty guilders apiece, and an agree- 
able means of livelihood for several years to come?"" 

Frederick"s face brightened visibly as he replied: 

^^Of course we should be delighted, and exceedingly 
grateful to you. Do you mean it seriously? It would be 
cruel to joke on such a subject with men in our position."" 

^^I can assure you,’" rejoined the stranger, ^^that I am 
thoroughly serious about the matter. What I propose to 
you is that you should enlist in the Dutch Army here. You 
know that the colonial troops receive a - high ^'ate of pay. 
The promotion is rapid, the duties are light; and although 
certificates of good conduct in the past are required, yet 
your face inspires me with such confidence, and your desti- 
tute appearance with such sympathy, that I am prepared to 
give the authorities the requisite guarantees in your 
behalf. "" 

Frederick quickly communicated the friendly otfer to his 
companion, and after a few minutes" consultation, they de- 
cided on accepting it, with many thanks. It was indeed a 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


113 


perfect godsend for them^ and it is impossible to say what 
would otherwise have been their fate. 

Shortly before nightfall, and after providing the two men 
with a good square meal, the benevolent stranger accom- 
panied them to the railway station, and took the train with 
them to Meester Cornelis,^^ the great central depot and 
headquarters of the Dutch Army in the East. On arriving 
there, an hour later, he conducted them to the bureau of 
the chief recruiting officer. After undergoing examination 
by a regimental surgeon, who pronounced them physically 
fit for active service, they were duly enrolled as soldiers of a 
regiment of fusileers. Their friend, thereupon, having ob- 
tained a voucher from the recruiting officer, proceeded to 
the paymaster's bureau, where a sum of money was counted 
out to him on presentation of the document. Of tliis 
amount he handed fifty guilders to each of the two men, 
and then bade them adieu, and left them in charge of the 
sergeant who had piloted them through the barracks. 

It is probable that neither Frederick nor his companion 
would have been so effusive in their protestations of grati- 
tude toward the stranger, had they been aware of the fact 
at the time that he had appropiated to himself the major 
portion of the bounty of three hundred guilders which be- 
comes the property of every European recruit who takes 
service in the Dutch ColoniahArmy. 

The latter, which numbers some 27,000 men, is composed 
of men of almost every nationality. Germans and Swiss 
form the major portion of the foreign element, which com- 
prises, however, many Kussians, Frenchmen, Englishmen, 
and Americans. At least half of all these are men who 
have previously occupied a more elevated rank in life. 
Kuined clubmen, bankrupt merchants and traders, fugitive 
cashiers and dishonest clerks, and a large sprinkling of de- 
serters from the various European armies, figure largely 
among the contingent. Among the corporals and simple 


114 


A SEKVANT OF SATAN. 


privates are to be found men who have held even colonels^ 
commissions in the Prussian and Austrian Armies, while 
once prominent but now ruined noblemen, such as the two 

Counts E , of Berlin, and Prince K , of Vienna, are 

to be seen figuring as mess-sergeants, and even as orderlies 
of half-educated and coarse Dutch infantry ofificers. Indeed, 
there is scarcely a foreigner in the Dutch Colonial Army 
who has not some sad or dark history attached to his name. 
Few of them ever return to their native land, for the 
climate of Java is deadly. It has been calculated that, of 
all the men who enlist, not more than thirty-five per cent, 
live through the whole period of their service. Of the 

27.000 men who constitute the army, an average of at least 

6.000 men are permanently on the sick list and hors de 
combat. 

The name under which Frederick had been enrolled was 
Frederick Gavard, of Alsace, while his companion had de- 
scribed himself as Charles Kenier, of Paris. 

During the next three years Frederick and his fellow fu- 
gitive endured all the hardships of a soldieFs life. Fred- 
erick had now learned how to control his former ungovern- 
able temper, and had -acquired the conviction that there is 
much more to be obtained by concealing one^s real senti- 
ments and by biding one^s time than by any headstrong act 
of violence. Although he kept his hands free from crime 
during this period, yet it must not for one moment be 
gathered therefrom that his moral character had undergone 
any improvement. On the contrary, he was a far more 
dangerous character now than he had ever been before. It 
was but the absence of a suitable opportunity for making a 
profitable coup that prevented him from adding to his list of 
crimes. 

By dint of the most careful observance of the regulations, 
by his remarkable intelligence, and by the evidences which 
he displayed of having undergone a most careful military 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


115 


training, lie had succeeded in working his way up to the 
rank of sergeant. He was regarded with favor by his su- 
periors and respected by his inferiors. Curiously enough 
he had kept himself free from any of those entanglements 
with native women which constitute the bane and shadow 
of a soldier's life in the East. At any rate, if he was en- 
gaged in intrigues of that kind they were kept secret from 
everybody. 

The chief trial and annoyance to which he was subjected 
was the difficulty which he experienced in getting rid of 
Charles Eenier, the companion of his flight from Hew Cale- 
donia. The man was constantly getting into trouble and 
appealing to him for assistance and for money. Frederick 
dared not refuse him, as he was afraid that he would dis- 
close his past history. Hardly a month elapsed without 
Charles being sentenced for some scrape or other to receive 
^^twentig Eietslagen" (twenty blows from the terrible Mal- 
acca cane of the corporal), and he was on the high-road to 
•terminate his military career by the strop," as the gallows 
is called out there. At length, catching sight one day of 
a corporal in the act of leaving the rooms inhabited by the 
dusky Mme. Eenier for the time being, he threw himself 
upon him and thrashed him to within an inch of his life, 
showing thereby the superiority of the French Savatte 
over the Hutch ^‘Boxie!" Indeed, he left the unfortunate 
man in a shocking condition, his jaw broken, and one of his 
ears partly torn from his head. Then, bursting into the 
woman's room, he seized the faithless damsel by the throat 
and kicked and pounded her into unconsciousness. After 
these exploi{s, well knowing that if caught he would prob- 
ably be court-martialed and hanged, he deemed it prudent 
to show a pair of clean heels, and on the following morning 
his name was posted up as that of a deserter, and a reward 
was offered for his capture. 

It may incidentally be stated that there are no less than an 


116 


A SEBVANT OP SATAN. 


average of three hundred to four hundred desertions every 
year in the Dutch East Indies. 

A few weeks later Erederick, who had meanwhile been 
promoted to the rank of pay sergeant, was walking quietly 
along one evening after dark in the outskirts of Padang, 
when suddenly he was startled by a strange noise proceed- 
ing from behind a clump of bushes. A second later he 
heard a voice calling gently, Wolff! Wolff Frederick 
started violently, for there was no one in the colony who 
knew him by the name under which he had been sentenced 
for murder at Paris, excepting Charles Renier. Before he 
had time to recover from his disagreeable surprise the face 
of his former fellow-convict showed itself peering through 
the branches of a ^'summak '"^ bush. 

Come [nearer. I don^t want to be seen, and I must 
speak to you.^^ 

What is it?^' said Frederick, angrily, as he approached. 
You know I can^t be seen talking to you. A price has 
been set on your head, and were it to be known that I had 
held any communication with you without delivering you 
up to the authorities I would be court-martialed. What is 
it you want? Money again ?^^ 

^^No, not from you at any rate.^^ 

Well, then, what is it? Explain quickly! I have no 
time to loseT' 

All I want is your assistance in a little business transac- 
tion of my own invention. 

A pretty kind of transaction that must be.^^ 

I assure you it is. I am very proud of it. It is the 
finest coup imaginable, and you know that you have always 
put me off with the assurance that if ever anything really 
good turned up I might rely upon you to take a hand in it.""^ 
^^Well, speak, man! What is it? Don^t keep me here 
the whole night !^^ exclaimed Frederick, who began to feel 
interested. 


A SEEVANT OP SATAN. 


117 


It is merely this: The boat from Batavia, which arrived 
yesterday, brought a considerable amount of specie for the 
payment of the troops here. I know that you have been 
promoted to the rank of pay-sergeant, and that you have 
been ordered to sleep on a camp-bed in the office where the 
safe containing the money is placed. 

What of that?^^ inquired Frederick. 

^‘1 want you to allow yourself to be surprised to-morrow 
night, when I and a few of my ^ pals ^ will creep in by the 
window and take a look at the safe with some profit to our- 
selves. There will be no danger for you, as we shall tie you 
down to your bed and gag you, so as to convince the au- 



thorities that it was no fault of yours if the money is gone. 
The only thing I want for you to do is not to give an alarm 
when you hear us coming. 

Frederick began by firmly refusing to have anything to 
do with the matter. But upon Eenier, who had nothing- 
more to lose, threatening him to make public the fact that 
he was nothing more than an escaped convict under sen- 
tence to penal servitude for murder, and as such extraditable, 
he gave way and promised to do what he -was asked in re- 
turn for a share in the proceeds of the robbery. 

On the following night some six or seven figures might 


118 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


have been seen creeping noiselessly through the gardens of 
the bungalow, on the first fioor of which were located the 
paymaster's offices. The leader of the gang, having climbed 
up on the roof of the veranda, followed by two of his men, 
gently pushed open a window which had been left ajar. A 
moment later two pistol-shots rang out in rapid succession, 
followed by a loud cry. A second afterward another shot 
was heard. 

Immediately the whole place was in an uproar. On en- 
tering the room the officers found Frederick Gavard, the 
pay-sergeant, standing guard over the safe, while near the 
window lay stretched the dead body of the deserter, Charles 
Renier, and on the roof of the veranda outside lay another 
corpse, also of a deserter, shot through the head. In the 
garden and on the fiower-beds were traces of numerous 
footsteps, showing that the house had been attacked by a 
large gang. 

Six weeks afterward the troops at Padang were formed 
into a square, and the officer in command of the place sum- 
moned the pay-sergeant, Frederick Gavard, from the ranks, 
and pinned on his breast the silver cross which had been 
conferred upon him by the Governor-General of the East 
Indies for his gallantry in defending the treasure chest of 
the cantonment against heavy odds. 

At no period of Frederick's career did his prospects seem 
more promising than now. Renier, who had been the only 
person in the colony who was acquainted with his past re- 
cord, was dead, and instead of being punished as he might 
have been for putting an end to the days of the man who 
had possessed so dangerous a knowledge concerning him, 
he had been rewarded for the deed as if it had been one of 
the most brilliant feats that he could possibly have accom- 
plished. Not only had he received a decoration ordinarily 
conferred for acts of valor on the field of battle, but about 
three months later he had the pleasure of learning that he 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


119 


had been promoted to the rank of a lieutenant. His colonel, 
who had taken a great fancy to him, now frequently invited 
him to his quarters, where^he spent many agreeable hours. 

The regiment having been transferred to Batavia, he had 
the opportunity of meeting at his coloneFs house all the 
most prominent members of the Dutch East India Society. 
The coloneFs young wife was extremely fond of amusements 



FREDERICK GETS THE SILVER CROSS. 


of all kinds and held open house. Many were the dinners, 
soirees, balls, or croquet parties which Frederick helped her 
to organize; besides this, he often accompanied her to the 
houses of her numerous friends, where his good looks, 
charming manner, talents, and witty conversation soon made 
him a universal favorite. 

Among the most brilliant entertainments of the season 


120 


A SEKVANT OF SATAN. 


was a superb ball given by a Mr. and Mrs. Van der Beck, 
who were intimate friends of the colonel and his wife. The 
dance was preceded by some private theatricals. The piece 
performed was ^^La Belle Helene/’ the role of Paris being 
filled by Frederick and that of Helene by Mm e. Van der 
Beck, who, although no longer in the first bloom of youth, 
was still a remarkably handsome woman. Tall, with mag- 
nificent auburn hair and lustrous hazel eyes, she was, like 
many of the Dutch ladies in the far East, slightly inclined to 
embonpoint, a disposition due to their lazy and indolent 
existence and to the high living in which they indulged. 
When, in the second act of the operetta, she made her ap- 
pearance in the great scene with Paris she was greeted with 
a murmur of admiration and approval. Her skirt of prim- 
rose-colored satin was parted, Greek fashion, from the hem 
to the hip on the left side in such a manner as to reveal an 
exceedingly shapely leg, and her magnificent hair, loosened 
and falling far below her waist, covered her low-cut and 
gold-embroidered ‘^peplum” like a royal mantle. Frederick 
as Paris, in a costume of pale-blue and silver, looked like a 
Greek god, and when they began the duo du Keve” a 
perfect storm of applause broke out. It was noticed by 
many of those present that Mme. Van der Beck acted her 
part with rather more fervor and feeling than might have 
been considered strictly necessary for a drawing-room per- 
formance. However, as Mr. Van der Beck himself was in 
raptures about his wife’s acting, there was nothing more to 
be said in the matter. 

From that time forth Frederick became a constant visitor 
at the Van der Beck villa, and strange to say, was as great 
a favorite of the husband as he was of the wife. Mr. Van 
der Beck was one of the most prominent and w^ealthy mer- 
chants of the East India trade, and owned vast warehouses, 
not only at Batavia, but also at Kotterdam and Amsterdam. 

The life in these Dutch colonies is an extremely agreeable 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


121 


one. Hospitality is practised on a scale unknown in 
Europe. No invitation is considered necessary to dine or 
lunch with one^s friends, for everybody keeps open house, 
and an addition of half a dozen impromptu guests at the 
dinner-table is quite an ordinary occurrence. The ladies in 
particular are accustomed to a life of such indolence and 
ease that they are utterly incapable of doing anything for 



themselves. They lie all day on their sofas or in their ham- 
mocks, clad in diaphanous muslin peignoirs, eating bon- 
bons, smoking cigarettes or drinking small cups of coffee. 
In the cool hours of the evening, however, they seem to 
wake up, and go to the dinners, balls, and the theater, and 
are then as lively and loquacious as possible, banishing 



122 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


their laziness and languor till the moment when they return 
home and have nobody except their husbands to fascinate. 

Some time had elapsed since Frederick had made the ac- ' 
quaintance of the Van der Becks, when one day a letter 
arrived from Holland informing Mr. Van der Beck of the 
death of his eldest brother, and demanding his immediate 
presence in Amsterdam. As it was the worst season of the 
year for traveling, and he was extremely solicitous of his 
wife’s health, he decided that it would be imprudent for her 
to accompany him. Madam submitted to this with much 
more equanimity than she usually displayed in her relations 
with her lord and master, and three days later, escorted by 
Frederick, she accompanied her husband to the steamer. 

As Mr. Van der Beck’s absence was to last six months, if 
not more, he intrusted his wife with all the interests of his 
house and business and even with the signature of the firm. 
She was a remarkably clever and shrewd woman, and had 
on more than one occasion given him proof of her ability 
in business matters. In taking leave he especially recom- 
mended her to the care of Frederick, adding that he knew 
how much he could depend on the young man’s friendship 
and devotion. 

The deep mourning necessitated by the death of so near a 
relative forcing Mme. Van der Beck to withdraw entirely 
from society, she was now free to devote all her time to 
Frederick, with whom she became, as the days went by, 
more and more infatuated. Strong-minded as she was in 
all other respects, she seemed to have surrendered her whole 
will-power to the young officer, whose word was absolute 
law to her. He spent all the hours he could dispose of with 
her, and their intimacy grew apace. Frederick, as has been 
seen often before this, knew how to make himself perfectly 
irresistible to women. His manners were caressing and 
winning, and this, added to his numerous talents and good 
looks, made him a very dangerous friend for a woman like 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


123 


Nina Van der Beck, who had reached that period of life 
when the passions are most easily aroused. When a woman 
on the wrong side of thirty-five falls in love she is generally 
apt to make a much greater fool of herself than a girl would 
do, and if the man she loves is some years her junior she in- 
variably makes an absolute idol of him, anxious, as it were, 
to make up in devotion and self-sacrifice for all that she feels 
may be missing in other respects. 

As to Frederick, he at last began to see his way to bring- 
ing to a close his stay at Batavia, of which he had become 
heartily sick. By means of the most insidious suggestions 
and advice, he prevailed upon Nina to cautiously 
and gradually realize all her husband^ ^ available property. 
This, added to her own fortune, which was considerable, 
rendered her a very desirable prize indeed, and Frederick 
had all reason to congratulate himself on his luck. 

Mr. Van der Beck had been absent a little over four 
months, when Frederick one day applied for a four weeks^ 
leave of absence. This was readily granted by his colonel, 
with whom Frederick had remained on the most excellent 
terms, 


124 


A SEEVANT OF SATAN. 


CHAPTER XIIL 

A S A I NT^S DEATH. 

Among the passengers who landed at Singapore a week 
later were Mrs. Van der Beck and Frederick. Twenty- 
four hours afterward they left for Hong-Kong on board the 
French Messageries Maritime mail steamer Tigre, having 
given their names as Mr. and Mrs. Muller^ from Grats, 
Austria. 

On touching at the French port of Saigon, where the 
steamer was to remain some twenty hours, they w'ent on 
shore and, hiring a carriage, drove around the town, which 
Nina was curious to visit. After inspecting the park and 
the magnificent palace of the governor-general, they re- 
paired to a fashionable restaurant, where they dined. 
While sipping their coffee the French waiter, who had been 
dazzled by a princely pourioire from Frederick, informed 
them that there was at that moment in the town a very 
good opera-bouffe troupe which gave performances every 
evening at a cafe chantant in the vicinity of the restaurant. 
He even offered to get him tickets. Nina having manifested 
a desire to witness the performance, they crossed the street 
and entered the wooden building, which was brilliantly 
lighted with rows of gas-jets, and took their seats in the 
front row of the auditorium. A few minutes after the cur- 
tain had gone up a gentleman in undress uniform took the 
seat on the other side of Mme. Van der Beck. Frederick, 
glancing indifferently at him, suddenly recognized, to his 
horror, the municipal surgeon of the convict hospital at 
Noumea. He fairly shuddered as he realized what the 


k SERVANT OF SATAN. 


125 


consequences might be should he be recognized by the man 
who had attended him several times during his illness on 
the Island of Non. But with his usual coolness in matters 
of the kind he did not show his terror either by word or 
look. ^ 

During the course of the piece, Nina having dropped 
her fan, her neighbor picked it up, and seized this occasion 
to enter into conversation with her. He looked several 
•times inquiringly at Frederick as if seeking to recall to 
mind a half-forgotten face. At last, bowing courteously, 
he addressed himself to the man, saying: 

I can^t help thinking that I have had the pleasure of 
meeting you before, but I cannot remember where. 

With incredible audacity Frederick quietly replied: 
^^Your face also seems very familiar to me. Perhaps we 
have met at Paris. Have you been long absent from 
France?"^ 

Thereupon the conversation turned on Paris and Parisian 
society, and toward midnight ‘^Mr. and Mrs. Muller, 
taking leave of the surgeon, returned on board the Tigre. 

Early the next morning, before the steamer cast loose its 
moorings, Frederick, who was smoking his morning^s 
cigar on deck, saw a sight which, hard-hearted as he was, 
deeply moved him. A Jesuit missionary was carried on 
board in a dying condition. This unfortunate man had 
been detained for two years as a prisoner by the Anamites, 
and during the whole of this time the inhuman monsters 
had kept him in a wooden cage, so small that he could 
neither stand up nor lie down. As an additional refine- 
ment of cruelty, thick wedges of wood had been inserted 
between his fingers and toes and secured there with supple 
willow twigs. The hair of the poor wretch, who was only 
twenty-six years old, had become as white as snow, and he 
was entirely paralyzed I He died before the vessel reached 
Hong-Kong. 


126 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


Frederick, as he directed his steps toward the saloon, 
could not help making a comparison between the easy and 
luxurious life he, who so little deserved it, was now enjoying, 
and the shattered and broken existence of this saint, who 
had never done anything but good during his short but 
pure and admirable career. 

With a movement of impatience, quickly followed by a 
sneer, he turned away, and, dismissing these thoughts from 
his mind, knocked at the door of Nina's cabin* 


A SERVANT OF SATAN, 


127 


CHAPTEE XIV. 

SUICIDE. 

A fortnight later, the snow-capped peak of the lordly and 
beautiful Mount Fusiyama appeared in sight, and a few 
hours afterward the steamer rounded the promontory and 
cast anchor in the port of Yokohama. The ship was soon 
surrounded by some score of native boats, and having taken 
their place in the sampan of the Grand Hotel, Fred- 
erick and his inamorata were rowed on shore. The first 
few days were spent in visiting the various sights and 
curiosities of the place, and so enchanted were the couple 
with the beauty and picturesque aspect of the environs 
that they determined to remain for a time in Japan. 

With the assistance of the hotel officials, they secured a 
very pretty Japanese ^^yashiki,^^ or villa, situated at about 
half an houFs distance from the town, and caused such 
European furniture as they were likely to require to be 
transported thither. When all was ready, they took up 
their residence there, with a large retinue of native ser- 
vants, both male and female. These were under the orders 
of an ex-Samurai (member of the lower grades of the no- 
bility), who spoke both English and German, and who was 
to act as their interpreter and major-domo. 

The secrecy with which it had been necessary to observe 
all their relations until the moment when they left Ba- 
tavia, had imbued their intrigue with a certain degree of 
piquancy, and the constant change of scene which had 
passed before their eyes like a kaleidoscope, since they 
left Java, had prevented any danger of monotony and 
ennui. The- experiment which they were now, however. 


128 


A SEEVANT OF SATAN. 


about to enter upon was a most perilous one. With no 
European society in the neighborhood, and dependent solely 
on one another for conversation and diversion, it was only 
natural that a man of Frederick’s character and tempera- 
ment should soon begin to weary of the sameness and dreari- 
ness of his existence. It is useless to expect that any man 
should remain in a state of perpetual adoration for an indef- 
inite length of time before his lady-love, no matter how 
beautiful she may be. Familiarity breeds contempt, and 
this is especially the case when the lady is no longer young 
and has become sentimental and exacting. Accustomed as 
Nina had been at Batavia to see Frederick, and in fact all 
the other men by whom she was surrounded, anxious for a 
smile and ever ready to execute her slightest behest, it cut 
her to the very heart to see how, after the first few weeks of 
their residence in Japan, her lover’s affection toward her 
decreased. He betrayed traces of weariness in her society, 
and spent much of his time in riding about alone in the 
neighborhood. 

At about a quarter of an hour’s distance from the house, 
and standing on the banks of a small river, was a pretty 
village, of which the chief attraction was a chaya,” or tea- 
house. It was here that Frederick’s horse might have been 
frequently seen walking up and down, attended by his 

betto ” (native groom), while his master was being enter- 
tained by the graceful ‘^mousmes,” who constitute so 
charming a feature of every Japanese restaurant. 

Stretched on a mat of the most immaculate whiteness, 
Frederick would remain for hours, lazily sipping his tea 
and watching the voluptuous dances of the geishas” 
(dancing-girls). Although not beautiful, yet the Japanese 
women, when young, are exceedingly pretty and captivating. 
They have many winning and gracious little ways, and are 
thoroughly impressed with the notion that their sole mission 
in life is to provide amusement for the sterner sex. 


A SEKVANT OF SATAN. 


129 


The young man appreciated these little excursions into 
the country all the more since, with commendable caution, 
Madame Van der Beck had insisted that all the female ser- 
vants employed in the house should be married women. In 
order to realize what this meant, it must be explained that 
on their wedding-day, the Japanese wives are obliged by 
custom and tradition to shave off their eyebrows and to stain 
their teeth a brilliant black, so that their husbands may 
have no further grounds for jealousy. Their appearance is 
therefore scarcely prepossessing. 

Nina, more and more embittered by her lover's ever- 
increasing indifference, lost much of her former good humor 
and cheerfulness. She spent the whole day brooding alone 
in the gardens which surrounded her villa. These were 
laid out with much ingenuity and artistic feeling by one of 
the most famous Japanese landscape gardeners. Miniature 
rivers traversed the ground in every direction, spanned by 
miniature bridges, and with miniature temples and pagodas 
on their banks. There were also miniature waterfalls, min- 
iature junks, and even miniature trees, the latter, being 
especially curious. By some method which has been kept 
a profound secret by the great guild of horticulturists at 
Tokio, trees even two hundred and three hundred years old 
have been treated in such a manner as to stunt their growth 
and to prevent them from attaining a height of more than 
two or, at the most, three feet. Their trunks are gnarled 
and twisted by age, but there is no trace of the pruning- 
knife, and they constitute an exact repi^sentation in minia- 
ture of the grand old sycamore, oak, and cedar trees which 
line the magnificent fifty-mile avenue which leads up to the, 
sacred shrines of Nikko.^^ The object which the J apanesQ 
have in view in thus stunting the growth of certain classes 
of their trees is the fact that owing to the want of space the 
inhabitants of cities are obliged to content themselves with 
very small gardens. In order to make these appear larger 


130 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


and to allow for the composition of the landscape, which is 
the Japanese ideal of a garden, they are obliged to arrange 
everything in miniature, and since trees of normal size 
would be out of keeping with the rest they have discovered 
an ingenious scheme of dwarfing them to a corresponding 
size. 

One day, a few minutes after Frederick had arrived on 
his customary visit to the (tea-house), he was suddenly 
called out into the court-yard, where he found his betto 
stretched dead on the ground. Frederick had been in such 
a hurry to get away from home that he had ridden too fast, 
and the unfortunate native, whose duty, as in all oriental 
countries, it was to run before the horse, had, on reaching 
his destination, expired of the rupture of an aneurism of 
the heart. Much annoyed by this incident, Frederick or- 
dered the corpse to be conveyed home at once, and spent 
the remainder of the day with the pretty ^'mousmes” at 
the tea-house. 

When he returned home that evening, the widow of his 
ill-fated groom rushed up to him and, kissing his boot, en- 
treated his pardon for the ‘^stupidity of which her husband 
had been guilty in dying while out with the master and 
occasioning him thereby the trouble of attending to his 
own horse.” 

Frederick, much amused at this display of truly oriental 
courtesy, tossed the woman a few yen notes and entered the 
the house, laughing, with the intention of telling Madame 
Van der Beck aboift it. The smile, however, faded from 
his lips when he came into her presence, for, having learned 
from the men who had brought home the groom's body, the 
nature of the place where Frederick was in the habit of 
passing his days, her feelings of jealousy and anger were 
aroused to a boiling pitch. Thoroughly spoiled, accustomed 
to have every whim humored, and with no notion of how 
to control her temper, she gave full vent tfo a perfect torrent 


A SEEVANT OF SATAN. 


131 


of reproaches and abuse against the man for whom she had 
sacrificed husband, rank, and position. She taunted him 
bitterly with his ingratitude, ^and it was only with the 
greatest difficulty that he at length succeeded in restoring 
her to anything like calm. 

Had she but known the true character and the past rec- 
ord of the man to whom she had so rashly confided her 
happiness, it is probable that she would have exercised a 
greater restraint over her temper. Frederick had now lost 
all sense of her charms and attractions, and was determined 
to cut himself loose from bonds which, though gilded, had 
become irksome to him. Moreover, he lived in constant 
dread that her husband, Mr. Van der Beck, would end by 
discovering their place of refuge. This last encounter with 
his mistress brought matters to a climax, and he determined 
to put into execution, without any further delay, the pro- 
jects which he had been maturing for some time past. 

A few days later, he rode into Yokohama and took the 
train up to Tokio. There he directed his jinrikisha, as the 
little two-wheeled carriages (drawn at a sharp trot by one, 
two, or three coolies, harnessed tandem fashion) are called, to 
take him to the quarter of the metropolis inhabited by the 
merchants dealing in furs. After considerable trouble, he 
succeeded in finding some skins of the wild-cat, with which 
he returned to the railway station and thence to Yoko- 
hama. 

On reaching home, he seized the earliest possible moment 
to lock himself up in his room, where he spent an hour in 
cutting off the short, hard hairs of the furs which he had 
purchased, and, locking them away in a small box, he then 
destroyed the skins. 

While stationed in the interior of Java, a native sol- 
dier to whom he had shown some acts of kindness had 
displayed his gratitude by making him acquainted with the 
properties of the chopped hair of a wild-cat when mixed 


132 


A SEKVANT OF SATAN. 


with food. These hairs are swallowed without being no- 
ticed, but remain stuck by their points in the intestines. 
Any attempts to remove them or to relieve the patient by 
means of medicines are useless, since the hairs merely bend 
in order to give way to the medicament and then resume 
their former position. In a very short space of time, they 
produce terrible and incurable ulcerations of the intestines, 
and in the course of a few weeks the victim, who is unable 
to take any further food or nourishment, wastes away and 
finally dies of exhaustion and inanition. 

It was of this fiendish method that Frederick was about 
to avail himself for the purpose of getting rid of his rich 
inamorata, whose money, however, he was determined at all 
costs to retain. 

Mme. Van der Beck soon began to notice an agreeable 
change in the conduct of Frederick. His indifference and 
coldness vanished entirely and he became once more an at- 
tentive and devoted lover. He no longer spent his days at 
the ^^chaya,^^ but remained at home, and only left the 
house to accompany her on her drives in the lovely en- 
virons of Yokohama. Nina was at first at a loss to under- 
stand the reason of so radical a reformation, but finally 
made up her mind that it was to be attributed to the sorrow 
she had manifested at his neglect; and her love for him re- 
vived in all its former intensity. 

One day while driving in the neighborhood their atten- 
tion was suddenly attracted by cries for assistance which 
proceeded from the banks of a small stream. On approach- 
ing the spot they found that an English phaeton of some- 
what antiquated build, and drawn by an exceedingly vicious 
looking pair of half-broken Japanese ponies, had been over- 
turned into the water. The carriage was imbedded in the 
mud, and the grooms were making frantic efforts to extri- 
cate the terrified horses from the tangle of harness and reins. 
On the bank stood a Japanese gentleman in native costume. 


A SEEVANT OF SATAN- 


133 


who was giving directions to his men, Frederick, having 
alighted, courteously raised his hat aiid inquired if he 
could be of any assistance, an offer which was gratefully 
accepted. With the help of his servants the ponies were 
at length freed, but it was found impossible to pull the 
heavy and cumbrous vehicle out of the mud. At Nina^s 
pressing solicitation, the Japanese, who, judging by his 
dress and appearance, was evidently a man of high rank, 
allowed himself to be prevailed upon to acccepta seat in her 
carriage and to be driven to his home. The latter was an 
extremely pretty country house surrounded by vast grounds. 
On taking leave of them, with many profuse expressions of 
gratitude, he requested permission to call upon them on the 
following day. They learned subsequently from their 
major-domo that their new acquaintance was one of the 
most famous statesmen of the land. 

On the following day he paid them a long visit, and be- 
fore he left requested them to spend the next afternoon at 
his yashiki. There for the first time they caught a glimpse 
of Japanese life such as is rarely enjoyed by foreigners. 

On arriving in the court-yard and entering the house they 
found the entire body of servants and dependents of the 
establishments assembled in two rows under the heavy 
portico of carved wood. All were on their knees, and 
when Frederick and Nina passed between their ranks every 
iiead was lowered to the ground in silent and respectful 
greeting to the guests of their lord. At this moment the 
master of the house appeared, and in his fiowing silken 
robes, with his slow and dignified movements, presented a 
striking contrast to the restless and frisky little J aps whom 
one is accustomed to see rushing through the streets of Lon- 
don and Paris. 

A magnificent banquet was then served in true Japanese 
style. Six girls in gorgeous apparel entered the dining hall, 
and, falling on their knees, prostrated themselves till their 


134 


K SERVANT OF SATAN. 


heads touched the floor. They wore the most artistic of 
dresses, with huge sashes of a soft rich color. In their 
hands they bore several native instruments of music, includ- 
ing a ‘^hoto,^^ a kind of horizontal harp or zither; a 
^^samasin/^ or banjo, and a ^'yokobuc,^^ or flute. The 
fair musicians, still kneeling on the floor, began to play and 
to sing a strangely weird but somewhat exciting melody. 
Meanwhile other handmaidens, scarcely less richly dressed 
than the flrst, made their appearance, carrying costly 
lacquer trays with egg-shell porcelain cups containing slices 
of the feelers of the octopus, or devil-flsh, wonderfully con- 
trived soups, oranges preserved in sirups, and various other 
extraordinary confections. At flrst both Nina and Freder- 
ick made fruitless attempts to convey the viands to their 
mouths by means of the chop-sticks which had been placed 
before them, but soon, following the example of their host, 
they overcame this difficulty by raising the cups to their 
lips and gulping down the contents. 

Then came the most dainty morsel of the feast, which is 
to the Japanese epicure, what fresh oysters and Kussian 
sterlet are to us. Eesting on a large dish of priceless Kioto 
porcelain, garnished with a wreath of variegated bamboo 
leaves, was a magnificent fish of the turbot species. 
It was still alive, for its gills and its mouth moved 
regularly. To Nina's horror, the serving girl raised the 
skin from the upper side of the fish, which was already 
loose, and picked off slice after slice of the living creature, 
which, although alive, had been carved in such a manner 
that no vital part had been touched; the heart, gills, liver, 
and stomach had been left intact, and the damp sea-weed 
on which the fish rested sufficed to keep the lungs in action. 
The miserable thing seemed to look with a lustrous but re- 
proachful eye upon the guests while they consumed its 
body. To be buried alive is horrible enough in all con- 
science, but to be eaten alive must be even still worse. It 


A SEKVANT OF SATAN. 


135 


should be added that this particular fish_, the dai, is only 
good when eaten alive. The moment it is dead the flesh 
becomes opaque^ tough, and starchy. The wine consisted 
of warm ^ ^ sakke and other kinds of liquor distilled from 
rice. 

Toward the end of the repast, which lasted several hours, 
a sliding panel was suddenly drawn aside and an elderly 
Japanese lady made her appearance, crawling on her hands 
and knees. She was followed by a considerably younger 
lookiiag woman and two little girls. On Frederick looking 
inquiringly at his host, the latter, with a contemptuous jerk 
backward of his thumb, said: 

^‘Oh! my wife, at which words the good lady touched 
the floor with her forehead. 

The younger woman was equally briefly introduced as 

Okamisan,^^ and was the second wife of the worthy host. 
Of the two little girls one was a daughter by the first wife 
and the other by Okamisan, who all dwelt on the best of 
terms together. 

Both Frederick and Nina were about to rise from the 
cushions on which they were sitting on the floor in order to 
greet the ladies, but they were forced by their entertainer to 
keep their places, while with an important wave of the 
hand he dismissed his family. 

On her way home that night Nina complained of feeling 
very ill, but attributing it to the effects of the extraordinary 
and mysterious dishes of which she had partaken, she at- 
tached no particular importance thereto. 

On the following day she was but little better, and from 
that time forth was scarcely ever well. Her languor and 
loss of appetite increased day by day. At Frederick's sug- 
gestion one of the best European doctors at Yokohama was 
summoned to attend to her case, but the remedies which he 
prescribed proved of no avail. She was rarely able to leave 
the grounds of the villa, and grew more feeble as the time 


136 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


passed by. Frederick was unremitting in his attention, 
and nursed her with what was apparently the most tender 
solicitude. 

Their residence at the vashiki '' was brought to a sud- 
den close shortly afterward by a tragic incident. A valu- 
able gold bracelet belonging to Nina had disappeared, and 
as the young Samurai (nobleman) who acted as interpreter 
and major-domo, had engaged the servants and rendered 
himself personally responsible foi; their honesty, Frederick 
laid the blame on him, and reproached him about th^theft 
in the most violent and unmeasured terms. The poor fel- 
low seemed to take the matter to heart very much, but ut- 
tered no word of response. 

The following day, however, he summoned all his friends 
and relatives, to the number of about twenty, and caused 
them to assemble in one of the detached pavilions of the 
villa which had been assigned to his use. Squatting on 
their heels around the room, with their hibashi or char- 
coal boxes in front of them, from the burning embers of 
which they every few minutes lighted their small and pecu- 
liarly shaped pipes, they listened in silence to a long docu- 
ment which the young man, who was seated in the middle 
of the room, read to them. Its contents were to the effect 
that he had rendered himself responsible for the honesty of 
the servants of his employer's establishment, that an im- 
portant theft had occurred, that he had been held accoun- 
table, and that not only had he been loaded with reproaches, 
but even himself been suspected [of being the thief. Dis- 
honor such as this could only be wiped out by his blood. 
He had therefore requested his friends and relatives to be 
present during his last moments, and to receive his dying 
wishes. 

As soon as he had concluded the reading of this docu- 
ment every one of those present prostrated himself with a 
long-drawn exclamation of ^^Hai,^^ which seemed to come 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


137 


from the very depths of the heart. This was to indicate 
that they fully approved of the course which he intended to 
adopt. 

After a few moments of profound silence the young man. 



in a low but yet matter-of-fact tone of voice, addressed each 
one of those present in succession, giving directions as' to 
the disposal of his property and messages for absent ac- 
quaintances. 


138 


A SEBVANT OF SATAN. 


Then there was another silence^ during which cups of tea 
and sakke were passed around. 

Suddenly, on a sign from the young man, the person 
nearest to him, and who was his dearest relative, arose and 
left the room. On returning a few minutes later he drew 
from his loose and flowing sleeve a short but heavy Japanese 
sword about twenty inches in length. The whole of the 
broad, heavy blade and the razor-like edge were hidden by 
a double layer of flne but opaque Japanese tissue paper, 
which eflectually concealed from sight every trace of the 
deadly steel excepting about a quarter of an inch of the 
point. Prostrating himself before the young Samurai he 
handed it to him with much formality. 

The latter received it in the same ceremonious manner, 
and having taken one last whiff at his pipe and replaced it 
in the flre-box, he bared his stomach, and inserting the 
point into his left side, plunged it up to its hilt, and then, 
without a cry, without a moan, or even a single exclama- 
tion of pain, drew it swiftly across to the right side and half- 
way back again before he fell forward on his face. A few 
gasps were all that was heard, except the deep-drawn sighs 
of those present. The plucky young fellow was dead. Al- 
most every internal organ had been severed by the terrible 
cut, and he lay there motionless in a pool of blood, the red 
color of which contrasted vividly with the pure whiteness of 
the straw matting. 

Tenderly raising him up, his friends bore the corpse into 
an adjoining room, where, after washing off the blood and 
cleansing the body, they clothed it in the full costume of a 
Samurai and laid him on a mat, with his legs drawn up and 
crossed, his hands folded on his breast, and his two swords 
— the long one for his enemies and the short one for him- 
self — lying on the ground by his side. Not a trace of pain 
or anguish was to be seen on the dead man^s face, which 
looked incredibly calm and peaceful. 


A SEKVANT OF SATAN. 


139 


During that whole night his friends sat by the body, 
moaning and chanting in a low voice some kind of Shinto^^ 
songs or verse. 

It was only on the morrow that Frederick and Nina were 
made acquainted with all the particulars of the tragedy of 
the previous evening. The doctor happening to arrive 
shortly afterward, and being informed of the terrible inci- 
dent, immediately impressed upon them the necessity of 
leaving the spot at once, and even recommended them to 
quit Japan as soon as possible. At any rate, he urged that 
they should drive back with him to Yokohama and take up 
their residence temporarily at the Grand Hotel, within the 
boundaries of the foreign settlement. He explained to 
them that since their major-domo had committed hari-kari 
in consequence of his deeming himself mortally insulted by 
Frederick, it had become the bounden and solemn duty of 
the nearest relative of the dead man to avenge his honor. 

Nina, whose nerves had already received a terrible shock 
on hearing of her major-domo^s tragical end — a shock which 
in her feeble condition of health she was scarcely in a posi- 
tion to bear — now became terribly alarmed, and insisted 
on acting on the doctor’s advice. Frederick, knowing how 
small are the chances of a European agaiifst the deadly 
swords of the Samurai, which cut through flesh and bone, 
readily consented, and, having hastily gathered together 
their money, jewelry, papers, and other portable valuables, 
they drove to Yokohama in the doctors carriage. 

Nina, however, even when comfortably established in the 
handsome apartments on the flrst floor of the Grand Hotel, 
was in a constant state of dread and terror. She was con- 
vinced that every native whom she saw passing along the 
wharf was intent on murdering her beloved Frederick, and 
the idea of remaining any longer in Japan was intolerable 
to her. Having become aware that a steamer was about to 
leave two days later for San Francisco, she prevailed upon 


140 


A SEBVANT OF SATAN. 


Frederick to secure passages, and accordingly at the hour 
appointed for sailing she was carried on board in an exceed- 
ingly feeble condition. 

Before taking leave of them their friend, the doctor, who 
had attended to the removal of all their property from the 
villa, solemnly informed Frederick that he considered his 
wife^s case almost hopeless; that he believed her to be suf- 
fering from decomposition of the blood, and that her only 
chance of recovery lay in a radical change of climate and a 
sea voyage. 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


141 


CHAPTER XV. 

DEAD. 

It was a magnificent, sunshiny morning when the great 
paddle-wheel steamer of the Pacific Mail Steamship Com- 
pany raised its anchor and started forth on its twenty-three 
days^ journey to San Francisco. As it rounded the point it 
passed almost within a stone's throw of the inward-hound 
French mail-boat from Hong-Kong. Mme. Van der 
Beck, who, lying back in a deck chair, had been gazing 
languidly at the French vessel through a pair of opera- 
glasses, suddenly raised herself in her chair, and, uttering 
a piercing shriek, fell back in a dead faint. Quickly turn- 
ing his gaze in the direction of the passing ship Frederick 
was able, even without the assistance of the glasses, to re- 
cognize in one of the passengers on the hurricane deck 
Nina^s husband, Mr. Van der Beck. 

A moment later the French vessel rounded into the bay 
and passed out of sight, while the American mail steamer 
proceeded out to sea. Nina was borne down to her cabin, 
and a long time elapsed before she could be restored to con- 
sciousness. From that time forth she sank day by day. 
The glimpse which she had caught of her bitterly wronged 
husband had proved a final and crushing blow, and although 
her love for Frederick never wavered, yet it was easy to 
perceive that her heart was filled with remorse at the fatal 
step which she had taken in eloping with him from Batavia. 

One evening some ten days after their departure from 
Japan, Mme. Van der Beck, who was feeling more op- 
pressed and restless than usual, insisted on being carried up 


142 


A SEKVANT OF SATAN. 


on deck, where she was laid on a cane lounge and propped 
up with cushions. 

The night was a beautiful one. The dark-blue waters of 
the Pacific were so calm and still that they reflected the 
myriads of stars, and the full moon shed its soft, silvery 
light on the track of foam made by the vessel in its rapid 
progress. 

Nina at first lay perfectly still looking up at the sky, and 
now and again gently stroking Frederick’s hand, which she 
had taken in both her own. The young man, who was 
sitting on a camp-stool close at her side, looked unusually 
sad and listless, and from time to time his eyes scanned 
her colorless face as it rested on the white pillows, with an 
expression of mingled yemorse and sorrow. He knew 
that her days were numbered, and for once in his 
life he was on the verge of regretting what he had done. 
After all, this poor wo man’s only crime had been that she 
had loved him too well. She had always tried her very best 
to render him happy, and he had, in return, brought on her 
nothing but sorrow and death. 

Suddenly Nina raised herself slightly and said in a low, 
exhausted voice: 

My darling, I have been very happy with you. But you 
must not grieve! It is best so! It is best so!^^ 

This was the first time that she had ever alluded to the 
possibility of her death; and Frederick, greatly shocked, 
exclaimed: 

^‘^Why, what do you mean, dear? What are you talking 
about? I donT understand you. 

‘'Oh! yes, you do! You know well that lam dying! You 
love me so much that you do not like to think of the possi- 
bility thereof. But I feel sure that it is better for us to talk 
about it^ now that -the time of separation is so near at hand. 
I shall never reach America. I feel it; and I want to ar- 
range everything for you before I go!’^ 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


. 143 

Nonsense^ Nina! Don^t talk in that way, my dear girl! 
I cannot spare you. This voyage was all that was wanted 
to set you up. You are only suffering from langour and 
weakness. In a few days you will be yourself again. 

She shook her head gently, and turning her face toward 
him replied, while tears welled up in her large, soft eyes 
and glittered like diamonds in the moonlight. 

I have only one wish, Frederick. I want you to return 
to — to — my husband — all that I have taken fi’om him. My 
own fortune and my jewels you must keep. They are yours. 
I have written a kind of last will or testament this after- 
noon, leaving to you all I have. But it has long been a 
subject of bitter remorse to me that I should have taken 
away one penny of what belonged to him. Will you promise 
me, dear, to fulfil my last wishes in^iis matter 

^^Why, of course — certainly; anything you please, my 
dear girl. But for my sake stop talking of so terrible a 
possibility as your leaving me. I cannot bear it.-’^ 

Kaising her small, emaciated hand to his lips he kissed it 
tenderly. As he lifted his eyes once more to her face he 
was startled by the change he saw there. Her thin and 
delicate features had become drawn and haggard, and her 
eyes were dull as if a film had gathered over them. 

He started up alarmed. He was not himself that night 
and he felt ashamed of the softness which had crept un- 
awares into his head. He bent over the dying woman and 
moistened her parched lips with a few drops of brandy and 
water. She looked up at him somewhat revived and mur- 
mured wistfully: 

Take me in your arms, darling. I shall die easier so.^^ 
He knelt down beside her and gently drew her head onto 
his shoulder. For a few minutes there was perfect silence. 
Then, suddenly, Nina threw her arms around his neck, 
gasping: 


144 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


^^Don^tlet me die! Hold me closer, Frederick! Keep 
me here.^^ 

She clung to him in terror for a second. Then a spasm 
shook her from head to foot, and relaxing her hold, she sank 
back on her pillow. 

Kina Van der Beck was dead, and one more life was 
added to the number of Frederick von Waldberg^s victims. 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


145 


CHAPTER XVL 

LANDING AT SAN FRANCISCO. 

On the following evening at sunset, the deck of the 
steamer presented a most impressive appearance. All the 
officers and passengers of the ship were assembled around 
the corpse of poor Nina Van der Beck, over which the 
captain was reading the burial service. The evening was 
gloomy and threatening, and the dark-green waves were 
beginning to be capped with foam. Overhead there was a 
glaring red sky, of the fierce, angry color of blood which 
tinged the water around the ship a lurid crimson. Away in 
the west the sun, like a gigantic ball of fire, was sinking 
behind a bank of ominous-looking clouds, and from time 
to time a passiiig shadow shivered on the troubled waters 
like a streak of purple. Several huge albatross were un- 
ceasingly circling around the vessel with broad expanded 
wings, and their discordant cries added to the weird fantasy 
of the scene. The engines had been stopped, and the 
silence was only broken by the slashing of the waves against 
the ship^s side and the melancholy moaning of the wind 
through the rigging, which was so strong as to sometimes 
almost drown the voice of the commander as he proceeded 
with the service. 

On the deck at his feet lay a long, narrow object, sewed 
up in a canvas cover. An Austrian fiag had been thrown 
partly over it, so as to conceal as much as possible the rigid 
outline of the corpse which produced so dismal an impres- 
sion in its shroud of sail-cloth, to which two heavy cannon- 
balls had been attached. 

Frederick was leaning against the bulwark^ close to the 


146 


A SEKVANT OF SATAN. 


place where an opening had been purposely prepared. His 
arms were folded on his breast, and his head was bent; but, 
although he was deadly pale, he showed no trace of emo- 
tion, and remained so perfectly still that he might have 
been carved in marble. Only once during the brief cere- 
mony did his unnatural calm give way. The captain had 
arrived at those most solemn words of a burial service at 
sea: 

We therefore commit her body to the deep, looking for 
the resurrection of the body when the sea shall give up her 
dead.^^ 

Four quartermasters, with bared heads, at that moment 
seized the corpse, and, placing it on an inclined plank, al- 
lowed it to gently glide downward into the dark waters. The 
waves opened for an instant, with a low, hissing sound, and 
then closed again over all that remained of the once beauti- 
ful and admired Hina. Frederick shuddered, as if overcome 
by a great terror, and an expression of horror swept over his 
livid features. Making his way through the group of 
mourners, he rapidly walked forward to the very bows of the 
vessel, and for thiee long hours he remained there motion- 
less, leaning against the bulwark, peering into the gather- 
ing darkness, and apparently heedless of the terrible storm 
which was coming on. 

The tempest, which had announced itself by an alarming 
fall of the barometer, burst forth shortly after ten o^clock 
that night in all its intensity. It seemed as if the very ele- 
ments were raising their voices in protest against the great 
crime which had been committed. For a time the wind 
was so powerful that the ship could make no headway, and 
the very waves were beaten down by its terrific force. The 
air for a depth of about fifteen feet above the surface of the 
water was covered with a dense kind of mist, formed 
of pulverized spray. It was impossible to stand on deck 
without being tie^. 


A SEEVANT OF SATAN. 


147 


On the following day the wind lulled slightly, and then 
the waves, as if released from the pressure whioh had kept 
them down, burst upon the vessel in all their mad fury. 



Seas mountain high swept the deck from stem to stern, car- 
rying almost all before them. The boats were torn -from 


148 


A SEKVANT OF SATAN. 


tlieir davits and shattered to pieces. The smoking-room, 
pilot-hous^*, and captain^s cabin were severely damaged, and 
the paddle-boxes splintered to match-wood, leaving the 
huge wheels exposed to view. 

In the midst of all this turmoil, Frederick was below in 
the saloon, half-stretched on a divan, making an attempt to 
read. Suddenly a terrific lurch sent everything flying to 
starboard, and the young man, without touching the table 
in front of him, was hurled clean over it through the air to 
the other side of the cabin, where his head came in violent 
contact with the heavy brass lock of the door. 

For a moment it was thought that he was dead. Some 
artery had been cut, and a torrent of blood deluged his face 
and clothes. As soon as his fellow-passengers were able 
to regain their feet, they carried him off to the surgeon^s 
quarters, where some minutes elapsed before he could be re- 
stored to his senses. 

Marvelous to relate, it was found that he had sustained 
no injury beyond a deep and jagged cut extending over the 
top of the head. This was carefully sewed up, and with the 
exception of severe headaches during the next few weeks, 
accompanied by slight fever, Frederick suffered no ill effects 
from his accident. 

The wound, although it had healed well, yet left, even 
when the hair had grown again, a slight scar, which the 
French police might have discovered at the time of 
'^PradoV^ imprisonment and execution, had they taken the 
trouble to shave the front part of his head. 

The storm had driven the steamer so far out of its course 
that it did not arrive in front of the Golden Gate until the 
twenty-ninth day after leav,ing Yokohama. A few hours 
later the good ship was made fast to the enormous wharf of 
the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. Frederick hastened 
on shore, and was driven to one of the leading hotels. 

In the afternoon, having gone down to see about the 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


149 


passing of his luggage through the custom-house, he was 
much amused by the sight of the landing of the five or six 
hundred Chinese who had made the passage across the Pa- 
cific with him. If ever human beings were treated dike 
chattels it was on this occasion. The inspectors first of all 
began by carefully examining the strange-looking bundles 
and boxes which constituted their baggage; and, having 
ascertained that there was no opium concealed therein, they 
marked them with a large hieroglyphic in white chalk, in 
order to show that they had been duly passed. The owners 
themselves were then taken in hand, and their persons 
equally minutely searched, after which ceremony their 
backs were ornamented with a similar large hieroglyphic in 
chalk. The spectacle they presented as they marched into 
San Francisco, labeled in this fashion, from the highest 
mandarin down to the humblest coolie, was ludicrous be- 
yond description, and was greeted with many a hearty 
laugh. 


150 


A SERYANT OE SATAN. 


CHAPTER XVIL 

HURLED OVER THE FALLS. 

Frederick had intended to leave San Francisco on the fol- 
lowing day for the Atlantic coast. He was seized, however, 
that same night with a severe attack of fever, which kept 
him confined to his bed for over a fortnight. As soon, 
however, as he had sufficiently recovered to be able to travel, 
he betook himself to the offices of the railway company and 
purchased a ticket for New York, engaging for himself the 
private saloon on board the sleeping-car. On the next night 
he took the ferry-boat over to Oakland, and embarked on 
the transcontinental express. Among his fellow-passengers 
were a couple of young English noblemen, who had been 
visiting the Yosemite Valley, and who were now on their 
way to Ottawa. Frederick soon became acquainted with 
them, and created the most favorable impression. The 
name under which he introduced himself to them was the 
Comte de Vaugedale, and he gave them to understand that 
he wa^ traveling around the world for his health. As both 
his manners and appearance bespoke every trace of aristo- 
cratic birth and breeding, and as he seemed to have plenty 
of money, the young Englishmen saw no cause to treat him 
with the distrust and suspicion which foreigners ordinarily 
experience at the hands of the subjects of her britannic 
majesty. 

The time was spent in playing whist and ecarte, games 
at which Frederick, who was an exceedingly wealthy man, 
could afford to lose in such a cool manner as to attract the 
admiration of his fellow-travelers. So agreeable did they 
find their new acquaintance, that they prevailed upon him 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


151 


to accompany them to Canada, instead of going straight to 
New York, as had been originally his intention. 

In due time they arrived at Ottawa, having spent a few 
days en route at Salt Lake City, Omaha, and Chicago. 

During the two weeks which they spent in the Canadian 
capital, they were most hospitably entertained by various 
persons of high birth and breeding in that city. They were 
also included among the guests at the ball given by the gov- 
ernor-general at Kideau Hall, where the man who, as 

Prado, was some years later to suffer an ignominious 
death at the hands of M. Deibler (the Paris executioner) 
had the honor of dancing with the illustrious personage 
who at that time graced the vice-regal mansion with her 
presence. 

At the conclusion of their visit to Ottawa, the three young 
men started for Niagara Falls, which they were anxious 
to see, and on arriving there, took up their residence at one 
of the principal hotels on the Canadian side of the cataract. 

The day after their arrival was spent in. visiting the Cave 
of the Winds, and other sights of the place. That same 
evening, after dinner, Frederick, leaving his two friends 
playing billiards at the hotel, lighted a cigar, and strolled 
down toward the Falls. As he was walking along the edge 
of the precipitous bank of the mighty torrent, he suddenly 
heard footsteps advancing toward him from the opposite 
direction. Kaising his eyes to see who the stranger might 
be, he recognized, to his horror, in the bright moonlight, 
the last person on earth whom he wished to meet — the hus- 
band of Nina, Mr. Van der Beck. 

Frederick hoped that Nina^s husband would fail to recog- 
nize him, and pulling his hat down over his eyes quickened 
his pace for the purpose of preventing the latter from ob- 
taining a glimpse of his features. His onward course, how-- 
ever, was brought to a sudden stop by Mr. Van der Beck, 
who, courteously raising his hat, requested him to give 


152 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


him a light for his cigar. As the two men stood face 
to face, the moon, which for a moment past had been ob- 
scured by a fleeting cloud, suddenly shone forth again, 
casting its bright rays full on Frederick's face. 

With a hoarse cry, the old man started back when he re- 
cognized the man who had so grievously wronged him. 
His face assumed a terrible expression; his eyes glittered 
fler-cely, and, trembling with suppressed fury from head to 
foot, he seemed for a moment unable to speak. 

The situation was truly an awful one for both. 

In striking contrast with the violent passions which 
surged in the breasts of both the husband and lover of the 
ill-fated Nina Van der Beck was the deep calm and loveli- 
ness of the scene around them. Not a breath of wind 
stirred the lofty branches of the trees. The moon was sail- 
ing majestically across the dark heavens, shedding a light 
so bright and pure that every blade of grass, every pebble 
in the path was distinguishable in the silvery sheen. Many 
feet beneath them, they could hear the mighty rush of waters 
as they sped on their tumultuous course between their rocky 
banks, and from a short distance off came the dull and un- 
ceasing roar of the great Niagara Falls. 

At length Mr. Van der Beck broke the silence and ex- 
claimed in a dry, hollow voice: 

have caught you at last, Frederick Gavard. ‘My 
hour has come! God help you, for I have much to avenge. 

Frederick, who had by this time regained all his habitual 
composure, contemptuously shrugged his shoulders and re- 
plied with a sneer: 

This is rather melodramatic, Mr. Van der Beck. May 
I inquire how you propose to take your revenge? I can 
make some allowance for your feelings. I quite realize that 

the role of a betrayed husband has its drawbacks, but 

Silence! How dare you add insult to the bitter injury 
you have done to me. Have you no atom of feeling left? 


A SEEVANT OF SATAN. 


163 


When you think of the unhappy woman you have ruined— 
of the friend you have betrayed — dishonored — robbed — yes, 
robbed, not only of, his wife, but of his fortune! Do you 
suppose that I shall allow you to escape unpunished? — you 
who have shattered my life and killed the woman I loved so 
passionately.^^ 

With these words Mr. Van der Beck took a step toward 
Frederick and raised his hand in a threatening manner. 

Stay, you old fool! You do not know what you are 
talking about. You had best not tempt me too far. I am 
not in a mood to be trifled with,^^ retorted the young man, 
defiantly. 

^^INeither am exclaimed the infuriated Mr. Van der 
Beck. You have in your possession still a part of my 
fortune. I will have you arrested as a robber and a thief if 
I do not kill you before then, as the destroyer of my hap- 
piness. But whatever happens you shall not escape me.^^ 

Frederick uttered a short mocking laugh. 

I have followed you half across the world,^^ continued 
Mr. Van der Beck, ^^and I swear by Heaven that I will 
put a stop to your shameless career and hinder you from 
doing any further harm.^^ 

The old man looked so awful in his anger that Frederick 
involuntarily recoiled. They were now standing on the edge 
of the path and within a few feet of the brink of the yawn- 
ing abyss beneath him. Mr. Van der Beck violently grasped 
the young man by the shoulder, exclaiming: 

^^Come with me. It is of no use to resist. I am armed; 
and, though I am but a feeble old man compared to you, 
you will have to follow me.^^ 

Saying this, he pulled a revolver from his breast-pocket 
and leveled it at Frederick’s breast. 

A fiendish expression swept over the young man’s fea- 
tures. With one swift blow of his arm he dashed the 
weapon from Mr. Van der Beck’s hand, and, seizing him in 


154 


A SEKVANT OF SATAN. 


liis iron grasp, he pushed him toward the precipice. There 
was a short struggle, during which the moon was once again 
obscured by a fleecy cloud. Twice cry for help rang 
through the still night air; twice the two men, struggling 
frantically, almost rolled together over the brink. But at 
last, putting forth all his strength, Frederick actually lifted 
his adversary by the waist from the ground and with one 
mighty effort hurled him into the surging waters below. 
There w^as a crash of falling stones, an agonized cry, which 
was heard even above the roar of the cataract, and a 
splash. 

Then all was silent again. 

In the woods an owl hooted twice dismally, and a dog in 
the distance uttered that peculiar howl which is only heard 
when the Angel of Death passes through the air. 

When the moon shone forth again Frederick might have 
been seen picking up the revolver which had belonged to 
Mr. Van der Beck from the ground. After hesitating for 
a minute he flung it into the river. Then> having arranged 
as best he could the disorder of his dress occasioned by the 
struggle, he turned on his heels and walked back slowly to 
the hotel, muttering to himself as he went: 

It was his own fault. What need had he to cross my 
path? However, it is best so. Dead men tell no tales.^^ 

When Frederick re-entered the billiard-room at the hotel 
his friends noticed that he was very pale. He called for a 
glass of brandy, and when it was brought drained it at one 
gulp. 

My dear boy,^^ exclaimed one of the young Englishmen, 
what the duse is the matter with you? Have you seen a 
ghost? How ill you look!^^ 

Oh, there is nothing much the matter with me,^^ re- 
plied Frederick. I suppose I have caught a chill; it is 
fearfully damp about here.^^ 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


155 


^^You should have remained with us. We have had a 
stunning game.^ 

Welh I am glad, all the same, that I went. The view 



FREDERICK HURLS MR. VAN DER BECK OVER THE FALLS. 

of the falls by moonlight is well worth seeing. Yes, ^ 
added Frederick, abstractedly, ‘‘on the whole, I am glad I 
went.” 


156 


A. SERVANT OF SATAN. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

IN NEW YORK. 

On the following morning the three young men crossed 
over to the American side of the Niagara and took the train 
to New York. They had hardly settled down at their hotel 
when cards began to pour in on them. The names of both 
of Frederick's traveling companions were well known, and 
the one which he himself had assumed sounded sufficiently 
grand to inspire a desire on the part of the hospitable New 
Yorkers to become acquainted with its possessor. Photog- 
raphers called the first thing next morning to request the 
privilege of taking their pictures, and several young ladies 
who were staying at the same hotel sent up their albums by 
the waiter with a request for autographs. 

A day or two later Frederick, glancing over the papers, 
caught sight of a paragraph dated from the Falls, which 
related that a Dutch gentleman who had arrived there and 
taken up his residence at a hotel on the American side had 
been missing for several days, and that as he had appeared 
to be in a very melancholy frame of mind on his arrival it 
was feared that he had thrown himself into the rapids. 

During the time which Frederick and his friends re- 
mained in New York they dined out almost every evening, 
and there is some ground for surprise as to why Frederick 
should not have availed himself of the opportunity which 
he had of marrying one of the wealthiest and handsomest 
women of New York society. 

As this portion of Prado^s career deals with certain 
personalities which would be easily recognized here, even 
under a pseudonym, it is better, considering the nature of 
the circumstances, to dismiss it with this brief allusion. 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


157 


CHAPTEE XIX. 

AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. 

Among the passengers on board the Cunard steamer 
which made its way up to its moorings in the Mersey on a 
misty and stormy morning three months after the tragedy 
which had taken place at Niagara Falls were Count 
Frederick de Vaugelade and his two English fellow-travelers, 
Mr. Harcourt and Lord Arthur Fitzjames. The intimacy 
between the three young men had become very much 
closer, and Frederick was under promise to visit each of 
them at his father^s country-seat as soon as the London 
season was over. 

On the day after their arrival in London Lord Arthur 
called at Frederick's hotel in Piccadilly, and after taking 
him for a lounge in the Eow, and thence to lunch at his 
club, proceeded to his father’s house in Park lane and in- 
troduced his friend to his mother and sisters. From that 
time forth Frederick became almost a daily visitor at the 
Marquis of Kingsbury’s house. 

His great attraction there was Lady Margaret, familiarly 
called ‘‘Pearl” in the family, a charming little brunette, 
with large, mischievous gray eyes and a joyful, light-hearted 
disposition which made her a general favorite. She set up 
a desperate flirtation with Frederick, and the latter began to 
believe that luck was decidedly with him, and that it only 
depended on himself to become a member of one of the 
greatest families of the United Kingdom. 

Lady Margaret’s elder sister. Lady Alice, appeared, how- 
ever, from the first to be prejudiced against the young man, 
and showed him by her marked coldness that she at least was 


158 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


not following the general example of admiring everything 
that he did or said. Indeed, he soon realized that she 
might become in an emergency a very serious obstacle to his 
matrimonial projects. 

The marquis himself took an immense fancy to Frederick, 
and introduced him everywhere with such marked favor 
that the hopes of the young man began to grow into cer- 
titude. 

One evening Frederick called toward 10 o^clock at the 
mansion in Park lane, and was ushered by the groom of the 
chambers into the drawing-room. The ladies had not yet 
left the dining-room, and he sat down on an ottoman to 
wait for them, taking up an album to while away the time. 

As he was idly turning over the leaves he suddenly uttered 
an exclamation of surprise as he caught sight of a portrait 
of his old enemy, *Capt. Clery, 

By Jove, this is unfortunate,^^ muttered he. I hope 
the man is not in London, for if he is we may meet any day 
here and I shall be in a fine hole.'^ 

He was so absorbed in the contemplation of the pictures 
that he did not hear the door open. A tall, soldierly figure 
entered the room and walked slowly toward where Frederick 
was sitting. As he laid his opera hat down on the table 
Frederick looked up, and could not help starting to his 
feet as he saw the original of the picture standing before 
him. 

Frederick's first thought was to effect his escape without 
delay. But while he hesitated for a moment as to the 
means of doing so without attracting Captain Clery^s atten- 
tion, the drawing-room doors were thrown open, and Lady 
Kingsbury, followed by her daughters and two other ladies in 
full evening dress, entered the room. Baffled in his purpose, 
Frederick now determined to put the best face on the mat- 
ter that he could. Of one thing he was certain, namely, 
that there had been no gleam of recognition in Clery^s eye 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


159 


when the latter had cursorily glanced at him on entering. 
The drawing-rooms were but dimly lighted by several shaded 
lamps, and the great change which had taken place in Fred- 
erick's appearance during the years which had elapsed since 
he left India encouraged him to hope that he might possi- 
bly escape detection, even on closer inspection. He there- 
fore advanced toward the lady of the house, and, bowing 
low, kissed her outstretched hand with the graceful and 
never-failing courtesy that was habitual to him in his rela- 
tions with the fair sex. 

‘^How are you, my dear count so glad to see you!^^ ex- 
claimed the marchioness; then, as she caught sight of Cap- 
tain Clery, who had meanwhile approached, she added: 
^'Why, Charlie, is that you? I did not know you were 
back in town. Let me introduce you to the Comte de Vau- 
gelade, a new but already very dear friend of ours.""^ 

The two men bowed to each other, and Frederick began 
to feel more sure of his ground as Clery gave no token of 
ever having met him before. 

The conversation soon became general, and Frederick, 
always a brilliant talker, surpassed himself that evening and 
kept them all interested and amused by his witty sallies and 
repartees until a late hour. 

He noticed that on two or three occasions the colonel — 
for such Clery had now become — fixed his piercing blue 
eyes somewhat inquiringly on him, as if trying to place him. 
It was evident that he was rather puzzled. 

At midnight they left the house together and strolled 
toward Piccadilly, chatting rather pleasantly on various 
topics. As they were about to take leave of each other. 
Colonel Clery suddenly exclaimed: 

I donT know why, but I have an impression that I have 
had the pleasure of meeting you once before, count. Your 
face seems familiar, although your name was until to-night 
unknown to me/^ 


160 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


I fear that you must be mistaken, colonel/^ quietly re- 
joined Frederick, taking out his match-box to light a 
cigarette. I am quite sure that I have never had the 
honor of an introduction to you before — a circumstance 
which I certainly could not have forgotten had it taken 
place, added he, with a bow. 

Thereupon the two men' shook hands cordially, and 
Frederick made his way back to his hotel, leaving Colonel 
Clery to hail a passing hansom and to drive home. 

As the cab rattled up Piccadilly toward St. James, the 
colonel thoughtfully twirled his mustache as he muttered to 
himself: 

Dashed if I can make it out! Where on earth did I 
meet that French fellow before? It seems to me as if he 
were connected with some disagreeable incident of my past 
life, but I will be blessed if I can remember when or how. 
I must try to find it out, however. The Kingsburys are 
making such a friend of him; and I am afraid that little 
Pearl is fast losing her heart to him. I must have a talk 
with Alice about the matter, and ask her where Arthur 
picked him up.-^^ 

On the following day, meeting Lord Arthur in the Kow, 
(Jolonel Clery questioned him about Frederick. 

^^Oh, Yaugelade is a capital fellow!^^ exclaimed the young 
lord. Tommy Harcourt and I traveled with him all over 
America. Lots of money, you know; good form and all 
that. The girls at Ottawa and New York were all crazy 
about him. We thought we should never be able to get 
him away. Awfully good fellow, and the most agreeable 
traveling companion I have ever met!^^ 

^^Well, but, my dear boy, do you know anything more 
definite about him? You see, one can never know too 
much about these blasted foreigners. Wasn't it somewhat 
imprudent to introduce him to your mother and sisters? I 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


161 


am afraid that Pearl is becoming rather infatuated with 
him.^^ 

‘^Oh, hang it, Clery^ you croak like an old parson. 
Pearl is a desperate flirt, and is always going it with some 
fellow or other. What would be the harm anyhow? I 
don^t think the pater would object very much. Vaugelade 
has fortune, birth, position, good looks, talents."' 

What on earth do you know about his birth, position, 
or fortune beyond what he tells you himself?"^ remonstrated 
the colonel. 

A look of real annoyance passed over Lord Arthur^s good- 
humored face, as he exclaimed, with unusual asperity: 

Now, see here, Charlie, I think you have said enough. 
Vaugelade is a friend of mine, and I won^t hear another 
word against him. . Why, man alive, he is not poaching on 
your preserves. On the contrary, I am rather inclined to 
believe that he and Alice don't hit it off well together." 

Shows her good sense," interrupted Colonel Clery. 

Well, that is neither here nor there. Don't let us quar- 
rel about it7 there’s a good fellow. By Jove, when you and 
Alice are married your house will be difficult of approach. 
I have never seen such people as you both are for always 
picking holes in everybody." 

Nothing more was said about the matter, and Colonel 
Clery decided to keep his own counsel in future. 

A week later the colonel and Frederick both dined in 
Park lane, and as nobody was going out that night, the 
party assembled after dinner in Lady Kingsbury's boudoir 
and began looking over some magnificent photographs 
which Clery had given to Lady Alice on his return from 
India. 

Oh, by the by, my dear count," said Lady Kingsbury 
to Frederick, who was sitting near her, you must tell me 
all about that horrible story of the elephant execution which 
you told Pearl the other day. She has been talking so much 


162 


A SEKVANT OF SATAN. 


to me about it that I am quite anxious to hear from you 
if it is really true. Surely it is impossible that such bar- 
barous cruelty should still be practiced in a country over 
which her majesty’s power extends!” 

don’t believe a word of it!” exclaimed Lady Alice, in 
very decided tones. The count, as we all know, is a great 
hand at oriental embroidery, no matter how flimsy the 
fabric on which it reposes.” 

^^My dear,” remonstrated her mother, ^^how can you say 
such a rude thing when Monsieur de Vaugelade has assured 
your sister that he himself has witnessed the ghastly scene 
with his own eyes!” 

Colonel Olery, who was turning over the photographs, 
quickly looked up at this moment and cast a searching look 
on Frederick. 

‘‘Now, Charlie,” said Lady Alice, crossing over to him, 

you have been in India. Do tell us if you have ever heard 
of this mode of execution?” 

Yes,” replied the colonel, slowly, I have. It is, how- 
ever, a very rare occurrence, and during the whole of my 
long stay in the East I have only known it to be applied on 
two occasions, both of which, as far as I can remember, 
took place at Baroda, a God-forsaken spot, ruled by a cruel 
and tyrannical man, who snaps his fingers at English laws. 
I particularly remember the last of these two executions, for 
the victim was a poor devil whose innocence was discovered 
some weeks after his having been put to death.” 

“Oh, now, you must tell us all about it,” cried Lady 
Margaret, whose love of the horrible was a standing joke in 
the family. “It positively sounds like a story out of a 
novel.” 

Colonel Clery, who had risen and was now standing be- 
fore the fire-place, turned his eyes full upon Frederick and 
remarked : 

“You really ought to ask Count de Vaugelade to tell you 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


163 


all about it, instead of me. Having been present on one of 
these occasions, he is certainly in a better position to satisfy 
your curiosity than lam.” 

^^Not at all, my dear colonel. If the ladies insist on 
hearing about this vilaine affaire, I had much rather that 
you would tell them. But,^^ he added, in a somewhat agi- 
tated voice, is it not rather a dismal subject to discuss? 
Let us talk of something else.^^ 

^^Ho, no,^^ urged Lady Margaret. ^‘We are in for the 
horrible! Don^t disappoint us, I beg of you.^^ 

'^Well, then, as the count is so modest and declines to 
give us another proof of his talents as a narrator, I will tell 
you what I know about the matter, said Colonel Clery, as 
he resumed his seat. 

It was about eight or nine years ago, and I had only 
recently returned to India from a long furlough in England, 
when all Baroda and Bombay society were startled by the 
announcement of the murder of a very prominent 
and well-known Hindoo widow, whose body had been dis- 
covered among the ruins of a temple in the outskirts of 
Baroda. A poor, half-witted beggar had been found remov- 
ing some jewels from the corpse as it lay in the long grass, 
and it was immediately taken for granted that it was he 
who had killed her. He was immediately seized and dragged 
before the guicowar or king, who lost no time in sentencing 
him to suffer death by the elephant. This most atrocious 
punishment, as Monsieur de Vaugelade will doubtless 
have informed you, consists in tying the culprit, who is 
securely bound hand and foot and unable to stir, by a long 
rope to the hind leg of the monster. The latter is then 
urged to a sharp trot, and at each movement of its leg the 
helpless body of the victim is jerked with a bound over the 
stone pavement. This is kept up for about the space of 
half a mile or so, after which the poor wretches sufferings 
are brought to a close, his head being placed on a stone 


164 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


block and crushed flat by the ponderous foot of the ele- 
phant." 

There was a murmur of horror among those present, in 
which even Lord Arthur joined, and Frederick, who had 
been sitting motionless on the sofa with Lady Kingsbury’s 
toy terrier lying across his knees, unconsciously twisted the 
little dog’s ear so violently that it gave a suppressed howl, 
and, reproachfully looking at him, retired to its mistress 
skirts in high dudgeon. 

^^Kemember, please," remarked the colonel, ^^that you 
insisted that I should tell you all this, and that I did so 
against my own inclination." 

Yes, of course, of course, my dear Charlie. But do go 
on, please," exclaimed Lady Margaret, impatiently. 

All right. Pearl. You are really the most blood-thirsty 
little woman I have ever met. I suppose I shall have to 
spin you the remainder of the yarn," replied the colonel, as 
he laughed somewhat constrainedly. 

I forgot to tell you that a man of the name of Count 
von Waldberg, a Prussian nobleman, with whom we had 
become acquainted on our passage out to Bombay, was at 
the time staying at Baroda with a Colonel Fitzpatrick. This 
young man never took my fancy, and I had had occasion to 
believe him to be a rather shady character." 

Just like you. You always manage to see the dark side 
of everybody," interrupted Lord Arthur, who was lounging 
on a pile of cushions. 

Please, Arthur, spare us your remarks. Do, there’s a 
good fellow," cried the irrepressible Pearl. 

When you have quite flnished fighting there I will re- 
sume my story," exclaimed Colonel Clery. 

Don’t mind them, Charlie. We are all very anxious to 
hear the end," rejoined Lady Kingsbury, smiling. 

Very well. I was just telling you about this man Wald- 
berg. He was invited by the Guicowar of Baroda to be pres- 


A SEEVANT OF SATAN. 


165 


ent at the execution which I have just described, and created 
quite a sensation by fainting away at the most crucial mo- 
ment thereof. Some days later he disappeared from Baroda, 
leaving a letter for Colonel Fitzpatrick, in which he stated 
that he had been called away on pressing business, and he 
has never been heard of since. However, it was ascertained 
soon after his departure that he was the last person who had 
been seen with the murdered woman before her death, and 
that he had been noticed within a short time of the crime 
near the very spot where the body was found. It was also 
discovered that he had been on terms of considerable inti- 
macy with her, and that half an hour before the body was 
found he had called at the house, and, under pretext of wait- 
ing for her, had spent some time alone in her boudoir. As 
a considerable sum of money and some very valuable jewels 
were afterward found by the widow^s executors to be miss- 
ing from a desk in this particular room, the theft, as well 
as the murder, was immediately laid at Count von Wald- 
berg^s door. It was too late, however, for the bird had 
flown, and all efforts of the police were powerless even to 
trace him out of India. I must add that there were some 
very distressing circumstances with regard to Colonel Fitz- 
patrick^s lovely daughter^ who, on hearing of the count’s 
sudden departure, committed suicide by drowning herself 
in the river. 

How horribleT^ exclaimed Lady Margaret. Why, the 
man must have been a perfect monster!’^ 

^^Not in appearance, at any rate. He was a very good- 
looking fellow — remarkably handsome — not very tall, but 
of aristocratic bearing, with small hands and feet, large, 
soft black eyes, and a black mustache. Yes, I remember 
him perfectly now!’^ 

At this juncture Frederick, who had risen, glanced at the 
clock, and, addressing Lady Kingsbury, said, apologeti- 
cally: 


166 


A SEKVANT OF SATAN. 


I am afraid that this interesting story has made me for- 
get how late the hour is. I must pray you to excuse me 
and to permit me to take my leave. 

Why, it is actually 2 o^clock!’' exclaimed the marchion- 
ess. I had no idea it was so late. Good-night, my dear 
count. Do come to luncheon to-morrow. You know that 
you promised to accompany us to the exhibition of water- 
colors in the afternoon. I am so anxious to hear your 
opinion about our English pictures.'^ 

After duly expressing his thanks and acceptance of the 
invitation, and, after bidding adieu, Frederick was moving 
toward the door, accompanied by Lord Arthur, when 
Colonel Clery called out to him: 

Wait a moment for me, count. I will walk part of the 
way with you, if you will allow it. I have got to go, too.'’^ 

. Frederick bowed his assent, and the two men went down 
stairs together. Lord Arthur calling after them over the 
balustrades. 

Dolce repose, Charlie; don^t dream of all these blood- 
and-thunder stories, and don^t treat poor Vangelade to any 
more of them on his way home. You are enough to give a 
fellow the creeps. 

For a minute after they had left the house Colonel Clery 
and Frederick walked on in silence. The night was very 
dark, and a fine drizzling rain was beginning to fall. 

Suddenly Colonel Clery stopped short in front of Fred- 
erick, and laying his hand on the latteFs arm said, quietly: 
know you now — you are Count von Waldberg!^' 

The light of a street lamp was shining full on Frederick’s 
face, and Colonel Clery remarked, with surprise, that not a 
muscle of his features moved. 

May I inquire. Colonel Clery, what on earth you mean 
by this astounding piece of insolence; for I can scarcely re- 
gard it in any other light after what you have, told us to- 
night about the gentleman whose name you are attempting 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


167 


to father on me in such a preposterous fashion. Had I not 
spent the entire evening in your company I should be 
tempted to believe that you had been drinking. 

I am perfectly aware of what I am saying/'’ replied the 
colonel, and I should not have ventured to make such an 
assertion had I not been sure of my ground. Ever since I 
first met you here in London I have been seeking to recall 
your face. I knew that I had seen you before, but could 
not remember where. To-night, however, the conversation 
about the Baroda executions has brought the whole thing 
back to me, and I recognize you perfectly now. I cannot 
be mistaken.-’^ 

It is to be regretted, for your own sake, that you are,^^ 
replied Frederick, and very much so, too. I will hold you 
accountable for this deliberate calumny, Colonel Clery. A 
man should have proper proof before daring to accuse 
a gentleman of such crimes as those which your Count 
Waldberg or Walderburg seems, according to your story, 
to have committed. 

Colonel Clery was fairly staggered by Frederick's extraor- 
dinary coolness and self-possession. He began to ask him- 
self whether he had not been committing some awful blun- 
der in asserting that M. de Vaugelade and Count Wald- 
berg were one and the same person. 

Of course, faltered he, at length, ‘^if you can give me 
any proof to show that you are not the man I believe you to 
be, r shall be only too happy to beg yoiir pardon for what 
I have said, and attribute it all to a. most remarkable re- 
semblance. 

I am quite ready to give you any proof you may de- 
sire,'’’ replied Frederick, very stiffly. may add, however, 
that were it not for the peculiar and privileged position 
which you hold with regard to the Kingsburys I should not 
dream of taking the trouble to exculpate myself in your 


168 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. ' 


eyes. It is for their sake alone that I consent to lower my- 
self to answer your ridiculous insinuations.^^ 

During this conversation they had walked on, and had 
passed Frederick's hotel without noticing it. They were 
now very near Colonel Clery’s rooms, in St. James. 

Have you got any — any papers about you which could 
convince me of my mistake and prove your identity in- 
quired Clery, somewhat hesitatingly. 

Well, I have my passport, which is attached to my 
pocket-book, and some cards and letters besides, if that will 
suffice, replied Frederick with a sneer; but I do not sup- 
pose that you wish me to sit down here on the curbstone in 
the rain and let you examine them by the light of the street 
lamps. 

Certainly not. Come up to my room — that is, if you 
donT object. It will be best for both of us to have this 
matter settled once and for all. 

^^All right; show the way. But I must acknowledge 
that you English are an infernally queer lot, and well de- 
serve to be called ^ originals.^ 

Colonel Clery, taking a latch-key from his pocket, opened 
the house door and preceded Frederick up a broad flight of 
steps. Opening another door on the flrst floor he ushered 
him into a large but cozy-looking sitting-room. The heavy 
Turkish curtains were drawn before the windows, and a 
reading lamp, shaded by a crimson silk screen,, was burning 
on a low side table, leaving part of the room in semi-dark- 
ness. Here and there on the tapestried walls were trophies 
of remarkably flne Damascened Indian swords and inlaid 
matchlocks. A few good water-colors hung over the sofa, 
and on the .chimney was a large photograph of Lady Alice, 
in a splendid enameled frame, standing between two old 
Satsuma vases filled with cut flowers. 

Colonel Clery mechanically motioned Frederick to the 
sofa, but the latter, taking from his pocket a small porte- 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


169 


feuille and three or four letters, handed them to him, say- 
ing: 

‘•Look at these first, colonel, so as to convince yourself 
before anything else that you are not now harboring a thief 
and assassin under your roof.^^ 

Colonel Clery, throwing his hat and overcoat on a chair, 
and taking the documents from Frederick, sat down on a 
low arm-chair in front of the table for the purpose of exam- 
ining them by the light of the lamp. 

Had he been able to glance behind his chair he would 



FREDERICK KILLS COLONEL CLERY. 
scarcely have been reassured by the expression which came 
over Frederick’s features as soon as he felt that he was no 
longer observed. But the colonel was so absorbed in the 
perusal of one of the letters handed to him that he did not 
even notice that Frederick had softly approached and was 
bending over him as if to read over his shoulder. 

Noiselessly Frederick removed from his collar a long and 
slender pearl-headed platinum pin with a very sharp point, 
which he habitually wore in the evening to keep his white 
tie in place. After a rapid glance at the nape of the 


170 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


coloneFs neck, which was fully exposed to view as he bent 
over the latter, Frederick, with a swift downward motion of 
his hand, buried this novel kind of a stiletto to the very 
head between the first and second vertebrae of the spinal 
column. Without a cry, without a sound, the unfortunate 
officer fell forward on the table as if he had been struck by 
lightning. Death had been instantaneous, the spinal mar- 
row having been touched by the unerring and steady prick 
of the tiny weapon. 

This was but another instance of the dangerous knowl- 
edge which Frederick had acquired from the natives during 
his sojourn in Java. All the -more dangerous, as when 
death has been brought about in this way no trace of vio- 
lence remains except the minute puncture at the back of 
the neck produced by the pin. This is almost certain to 
escape observation unless specially looked for, and the death 
is attributed to a sudden failure of the action of the heart. 

Frederick, having ascertained that the colonel was quite 
dead, took from his contracted hand the letter he had been 
reading, replaced it in the portefeuille with the others, and 
then restored it to his pocket. Bending once more over the 
lifeless form of the colonel he drew the pin from the almost 
invisible wound, which had not even bled, and replaced it in 
his tie. Then, taking the body in his arms, he dragged it 
to the lounge, on which he carefully laid it, closing the 
wide-open eyes and arranging the pillows under the head. 
Lowering the lamp, he went softly to the door, and, after 
listening intently for some minutes to hear if any one was 
about, he stepped out of the room, and closing the door 
after him, walked down stairs and into the quiet, lonely 
street. 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


171 


CHAPTEE XX. 

LADY ALICE S SUSPICION. 

The next day was a fine one. The sun was shining 
brightly, the sky was a deep transparent blue, and as Fred- 
erick walked through the park on his way to the Kingsbury 
mansion he stopped several times to enjoy the cool morning 
air. The trees were clothed in all the fresh beauty of their 
spring garments, dew was sparkling like diamonds on the 
velvetry lawns, where flocks of sheep were peacefully graz- 
ing, and the still sheet of water of the Serpentine flashed 
like a mirror in the bright morning light. Great rose- 
bushes, with their sweet smelling pink, red, and white blos- 
soms, perfumed the air, while the paths were bordered with 
a rainbow of many-colored flowers, over which yellow but- 
terflies were hovering. In the distance there was a kind of 
dim silvery haze hanging ihidway between heaven and earth, 
and through its gauzy vail the tall clumps of trees and 
bushes looked almost fairy-like and unreal. 

As he reached the Marble Arch Frederick espied an old 
beggar woman who was squatting outside on the pavement 
close to the park railings. She was a repulsive-looking ob- 
ject. Her face was seamed and lined with numerous 
wrinkles, clearly defined by the dirt which was in them; 
her biishy gray eyebrows were drawn frowningly over her 
watery, red-rimmed blue eyes; her nose was hooked like the 
beak of a bird of prey, and from her thin-lipped mouth 
two yellow tusks protruded, like those of a wild boar. 

Frederick, with one of those momentary contrasts which 
made him so difficult to understand, stopped in front of 
the old crone and dropped a guinea into her palm. She 


172 


A SEKVANT OF SATAN. 


raised one skinny hand to shade her eyes and looked 
curiously at the generous stranger. 

Thank ye, my lord/^ muttered she. 

You’ll drink it/’ I suppose, said Frederick, gazing at 
her inflamed nose and sunken cheeks, which bore unmis- 
takable signs of debauchery. 

^‘Werry likely,” retorted the hag with a grin; ^^I’ma 
fortune to the public ’ouse, I am. And it’s the only pleasure 
I ’ave in my blooming life, blarst it!” 

Ignoring this polite speech, the young man directed his 
steps to the Kingsbury residence, and was ushered by the' 
groom of the chambers into the morning-room of the 
marchioness. It was a long, low apartment, oak-paneled, 
and had an embossed and emblazoned ceiling from which 
silver lamps of old Italian work hung by silver chains. The 
blinds were drawn down, and the hues of the tapestry, of 
the ivories which stood here and there on the carved 
brackets, of the paintings on the walls, and of the em- 
broideries on the satin furniture, made a rich chiaro-oscuro 
of color. Large baskets and vases full of roses and lilies 
rendered the air heavy with their intoxicating odor. 

Frederick sat down on a low couch to await the mistress 
of the house. His brows were knit and he murmured to 
himself abstractedly. 

Do they know it already? Hardly yet, I should think. 
Well, I must make 1)011716 contenance if I wish to win the 
game. By Heaven! it’s worth the candle.” 

He had been brooding in this fashion for some ten min- 
utes, when the door opened, and Lady Kingsbury, wrapped 
in a loose gown of olive-colored cashmere, with a profusion 
of old lace at her breast, and open sleeves, entered the 
room. She was very pale, and her still beautiful eyes showed 
traces of weeping. 

She advanced toward Frederick with outstretched hands, 
saying in a broken, unsteady voice: 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


173 


Pardon me for keeping you waiting, my dear count. 
But this terrible misfortune has upset me so much that I am 
quite ill and ought not to have left my room.-^^ 

Good Heaven! my dear Lady Kingsbury, what has hap- 
pened exclaimed Frederick, with an air of the most pro- 
found surprise. 

Oh! it is too, too awful! My poor, poor Alice! Colonel 
Clery has been found dead in his room this morning!^^ 

^^Dead! dead! Colonel Clery! Great God! Why, I left 
him in perfect health a few hours ago! What could have 
caused his death 

Heart disease, I presume; though nobody who saw him 
would ever have believed him to be subject thereto. When 
his servant entered his rooms this morning he found him 
lying on the lounge, still wearing his evening dress. Sur- 
prised at such a proceeding on the part of a man who was 
as regular and methodical in his habits as was his master, 
the valet approached the sofa and attempted to rouse him. 
But he was dead 1 and the doctor, who was immediately 
called in, declared that he must have been so for some 
hours, concluded Lady Kingsbury, bursting into fresh 
tears. 

^‘This is really terrible, said Frederick, with a display 
of considerable emotion. I cannot tell you how shocked 
I am! One could not help being fond of Colonel Clery. He 
was a man in a thousand, and though our acquaintance 
was so short I feel his loss as that of an old and dear friend. 
Will you think me indiscreet if I ask how Lady Alice bears 
this crushing blow?^^ 

^^Don^t talk about it,^^ sobbed the marchioness, 
almost fear that she will go out of her mind. Her other- 
wise cold and indifferent nature |.was centered in Charlie, 
whom she had loved for several years. Her father at first 
objected to the match, having looked higher for his eldest 
daughter. But he had to give way before the unwavering 


174 


A SEKVANT OF SATAN. 


constancy of the two young people. I don’t know what is 
to become of Alice now. It breaks my very heart to see her 
silent despair 

I will not keep you away from her any longer. She 
needs your loving care and sympathy/^ said Frederick, ris- 
ing. trust that you will forgive my intrusion on your 
sorrow, and that you will tell me frankly if I can be of any 
use to you. Dispose of me entirely. You have been so kind 
to me that I should deem it a great favor to be able to be of 
service to you.^^ 

Thank you so much, my dear M. deVaugelade. It is 
very kind of you to say so. DonT think that I am sending 
you away. I hope you will come soon again, but I really 
am afraid that I cannot bear much more this morning. 

Kissing her hand, Frederick bowed himself out and was 
slowly descending the wide staircase when he heard himself 
called by name. 

Turning himself quickly round he saw Lady Alice stand- 
ing at the head of the stairs and beckoning to him. Was 
this the bright and happy girl whom he had left but a few 
hours ago? Her head leaned backward against the high, 
carved panel of the wall, her face was deadly pale and 
cold, and had the immutability of a mask of stone. 
Other women might moan aloud in their misery and curse 
their fate, but she was one of those who choke down their 
hearts in silence and conceal their death-wounds. 

A few steps brought Frederick to her side. He did not 
dare to salute her, for it seemed to him as if her whole being 
shrank within her as she saw him there. Without looking 
at him, she spoke in a voice quite firm though it was faint 
from feebleness. 

I have but little to say to you. I want only to ask you, 
how and where you parted last night with — with — him?^^ 

She almost lost her self-control. Her lips trembled and 
she pressed her hand on her breast. 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


175 


Frederick staggered slightly, as if under some sword- 
«troke from an unseen hand. A great faintness came upon 
him. For a moment he was speechless and mute. She 
looked up at him steadily once. Then she spoke again in 
that cold, forced, measured voice which seemed to his ear 
as hard and pitiless as the strokes of an iron hammer. 

, I ask you how you parted with him?^^ 

"With a mighty effort he broke the spell which held him 
mute, and murmured, with a suffocated sound in his voice, 
as though some hand were clutching at his throat: 

left him well and happy. Why do you ask me? I 
know nothing more.^^ 

Are you so sure of that?^^ she asked, fixing her cold eyes 
upon him. 

^‘^Lady Alice! what do you mean exclaimed Frederick, 
who, seeing the danger, was regaining his entire self- 
possession. 

Nothing, she answered wearily. Go. It is best so. 
I must have time — time to think. 

She passed her hand over her forehead twice, as if in 
pain, and he, bowing low, walked down stairs blindly, not 
knowing whither he went. Mechanically he reached the 
entrance, passed the threshold, and went out into the bright 
spring sunlight. 


176 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


CHAPTEK XXL 

PLAINS FOR THE FUTURE. 

The morning papers on the following day contained the 
announcement of Colonel Charles Clery^s sudden death, 
and after devoting some space to a brief outline of his 
career, concluded with the following sentences: 

The late colonel dined the night before his death at the 
house of the Marquis of Kingsbury, in Park lane. He ap- 
peared to be in excellent health and spirits, and left some 
time after midnight with the Comte de Vaugelade, in whose 
company he walked up Piccadilly. The count is reported 
to be the last person who saw him alive. 

A couple of days later, and before Frederick had had an 
opportunity of calling again at Park lane, a well-known 
society paper, renowned for the venom of its attacks and 
for the correctness of its information, published the follow- 
ing paragraph: 

Who is the Comte de Vaugelade, the foreign nobleman, 
in whose company the late Colonel Clery was last seen 
alive? We are informed, both at the Belgian Legation and 
at the French Embassy, that the name and the title are 
extinct.^’ 

These words caught Frederick's eye as he was glancing 
over the papers after his early breakfast in the privacy of 
his own room three days after Colonel Clery's death. He im- 
mediately realized that this, together with Lady Aliceas mys- 
terious words, was making London too hot for him. It was 
a great disappointment to have to leave England just as he 
believed that he was on the point of obtaining his hearths 
fondest wish — namely, a wife belonging to a wealthy and 


A SEEVANT OF SATAN. 


177 


noble family, who would place her husband for once and 
all in the sphere to which he was born. He could then 
have left his career of adventurer far behind him, and 
lived the untrammeled life of a gentleman of means and 
leisure, respected and honored by all. 

Men, according to the old Greeks, were the toys of the 
gods, who, from their high estate in Olympus, put evil and 
foul instincts and desires into their mortal hearts, and then, 
when the evil actions became the outlet of evil thoughts, 
amused themselves by watching the fruitless efforts made 
by their victims to escape a cruel and merciless goddess, 
called Nemesis, who stood there ready to punish them. 
The gods may have enjoyed it, but how about the poor mor- 
tals? In these days of skepticism and unbelief we have 
dropped this deity, but only to replace her by another, 
whom we have christened Fate, and whom we use as a scape- 
goat upon which to lay the blame of our own shortcomings. 
The true religion of Fate, however, is that our lives are the 
outcome of our actions. Every action, good or bad, has its 
corresponding reward — as Frederick found to his cost. 

He resolved to leave London without delay; but, fearing 
that if he traveled via Dover or Folkestone, he might meet 
a number of his English acquaintances, and thereby attract 
attention — a thing he particularly wished to avoid — he de- 
termined to take the train for Southampton that very after- 
noon, and thence to proceed to St. Malo, on the coast of 
Brittany. 

Before his departure, he wrote a long letter to Lady 
Kingsbury, informing her that to his great sorrow he had 
been called away by his only sisteFs dangerous illness, and 
that, having no time to come and make his adieus in per- 
son, he begged her ladyship to remember him most grate- 
fully to the marquis, and to her son and daughters, whose 
kindness, as well as her own, he could never forget. He 
added that he hoped soon to be able to return to Londoni 


178 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


since it was his most cherished wish to meet them all again. 

That same evening he embarked on . board one of those 
small steamboats which make the passage between South- 
ampton and St. Malo, and as he lay tossing on the narrow 
couch of the deck cabin, many a bitter thought filled his 
troubled mind. He got but little sleep, and when the vessel 
steamed into the harbor of St. Malo he was standing on 
deck, looking moodily into the deep, transparent waters, 
where the jelly-fish were fioating many fathoms beneath the 
surface of the bay, and where a school of porpoises were 
sporting in the foaming track left by the ship. 

St. Malo is one of the most picturesque places in France, 
and one of the most ancient. It is fortified, and its gray, 
moss-grown walls and battlements, when seen from the en- 
trance of the harbor, carry one back to old feudal times. 

Frederick, having passed his trunks through the custom- 
house, made his way to the best hotel in the place — a grim- 
looking stone building, with mullioned windows, rusty iron 
balconies, and peaked roof, which looked more like one of 
Dore^s pictures than any modern hostelry. Entering the 
office of the hotel, he asked for a sitting-room and bed- 
room, and was soon ushered into the very suite of apart- 
ments in which the poet Chateaubriand had been born. The 
ponderous oak furniture of the rooms, coupled with the 
dark paneling of the walls, rendered them a rather gloomy 
place of abode. 

He walked listlessly to the window, and amused himself 
in watching the crowd of peasants, who, as it was market- 
day, were assembling upon the esplanade in front of the 
hotel. The poorer classes have kept here in all its integrity 
the costume which was worn before the French revolution 
of 1793 by the peasants in Brittany and the Vendee. The 
men with their red coats, baggy white breeches, tied with 
ribbons at the knee over their crimson stockings, low silver- 
buckled shoes, and three-cornered hats; the women with 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


179 


their short dark woolen petticoats, blue or pink aprons, lace 
fichus, and white caps, which look like the wings of a 
gigantic butterfly, presented a scene not only animated, but 
also exceedingly picturesque, which appealed strongly to 
Frederick's artistic instincts. -Taking his sketch-book with 
him, he went down stairs again, with the intention of mak- 
ing a few sketches of this queer little town and its quaint 
inhabitants. 

He walked oyer to St. Servan, and, after spending some 
time in taking a sketch of the walls and turrets of St. 
Malo, he hired a boat and rowed over to the island of Grand 
Bey, where he intended to visit Chateaubriand^s monument. 
When he returned to the Hotel de France, he ordered his 
dinner to be brought up to his sitting-room; and long after 
the piquant little chambermaid had removed the cloth, and 
noiselessly left the great dark room, he sat wrapt deep 
in thought, brooding over the past and planning out the 
future, which seemed very uncertain to him at that 
niomeut, 


180 


A SEEVANT OF SATAN, 


CHAPTER XXIL 

FEE DEKICK MEETS HIS FATHER. 

A few days later, a cab drew up at the door of a hotel on 
the Puerto del Sol at Madrid, and from it alighted Fred- 
erick von Waldberg, in his latest role as Count Linska de 
Castillon. 

Finding, however, the Spanish capital intolerably hot 
and dismally empty, he soon turned his steps northward 
again, and took up his residence in the pretty seaport 
town of St. Sebastien, which is the most fashionable bath- 
ing-place on the Peninsula. It was crowded at the time 
with all the cream of Spanish society; and Frederick, with 
his ordinary skill and savoir faire, soon became acquainted 
with all the best people there, including a clique of gay 
young clubmen, who turned the night into day, and gam- 
bled, danced, flirted, and drank, with untiring energy. 

Frederick's passion for cards soon revived in all its in- 
tensity in this vortex of dissipation, and he seldom left the 

Salon de Jeu'^ of the Casino before the small hours of the 
morning. At first he won a great deal, but soon his luck 
began to fail him, and at the end of three weeks he discov- 
ered, to his disgust, that he had left on the green baize of 
the card-table a sum of over 150,000 francs. 

This has got to stop,^^ muttered he, angrily, ^^or I shall 
soon be running down hill at a rapid pace. The question 
is, how can I stop now without arousing comment 

At the beginning of his stay in St. Sebastien, he had been 
introduced by a young Madrilene, who was staying at the 
same hotel, to a charming family, composed of the father, 
an old Spanish grandee; the mother, who had been a 


A SEEYANT OF SATAN. 


181 


beauty, and their lovely daughter, Dolores. Don Garces y 
Marcilla was evidently a wealthy man, and occupied a lux- 
uriously appointed villa on the sea-shore. Frederick soon 
began to be a constant visitor at this house, and his atten- 
tions to the fair Dolores were so marked that they became 
the talk of the beau-monde of St. Sebastien. Dolores was 
a remarkably dashing and handsome girl, with fiery black 
eyes and raven tresses. Her complexion was dark, and her 
lips were of the vivid crimson of a pomegranate fiower. 
She was evidently very much in love with Frederick, and 
he had but little doubt that he would be accepted if he 
chose to ask her to be his wife. 

For him this marriage presented many advantages. To 
begin with, it would open wide to him the doors of the 
Spanish aristocracy. The Garces y Marcilla prided them- 
selves on being able to trace their descent from the kings of 
Aragon, and were high up on the social ladder. Then, 
there was also the question of money. Frederick had found 
out that Dolores would not only receive on her wedding- 
day a dowry of 200,000 francs — not a big sum in itself, 
although in Spain it is considered quite large — but that, 
Don Garces y Marcilla being a rich man, she would further 
inherit a fortune at his death. Since he had lost all hopes 
of obtaining the hand of Lady Margaret, a marriage with 
the daughter of Don Garces seemed to him to be the most 
advantageous to his interests. 

Still undecided, however, as to the course he should adopt, 
he one morning directed his steps toward the Garces villa, 
with the object of inviting the whole family to a dinner 
which he proposed giving, some days later, for the purpose 
of returning in some measure the courtesy and hospitality 
with which they had received him. 

As it was near midday, all the servants were down below 
at luncheon, and his approach was unnoticed. Walking 
along the veranda, he soon came to the long French win- 


182 


A SEEVANT OF SATAN. 


Sows of the drawing-room, and, peeping in between the 
half-closed blinds, he saw Dolores, who, stretched on an 
oriental divan, was smoking a cigarette. There was but 
little light in the corner of the room where she reclined, 
but he could plainly distinguish the outline of her voluptu- 
ous form in its soft loose white wrapper, and the gleam of 
the rings on her small hands. Her great black eyes seemed 
positively to glow in tihe semi-darkness as she looked up at 
the rings of blue smoke that floated through the air. 

Frederick's heart began to beat faster. He vaguely felt 
that his hour of fate had come. 

They were as completely alone as if they had been in a 
desert. IN’o one of the household would have dared to approach 
that room without a summons from her. A nightingale 
was singing in the Cape jasmine which wreathed the ve- 
randa. Gently he pushed open the casement of the window, 
and stepped into the room. She raised herself on her elbow, 
and, flinging her half-flnished cigarette into a silver tray on 
the table, stretched out her hand to him, saying, in her low, 
melodious voice: 

This is a surprise. I am glad to see you.^^ 

^^Is it really so?^^ murmured he, bending over the small, 
cool hand, which he retained in his own, prolonging the 
fleeting moments with irresistible pleasure. Every gesture, 
glance, and breath of this girl allured him; a swift and 
wicked temptation flashed through his brain. He knew 
that she loved him, and that she was at his mercy. A 
shudder passed over him, and before he knew what he was 
about he had wound his arms around her and pressed his 
lips to hers. It was but a second, and then he thrust her 
away from him. She gave him a look of such intense sur- 
prise and pain, that, dropping on one knee before her, he 
murmured, in a voice which still shook with suppressed 
passion: 

Dona Dolores, will you be my wife?*'’ 


A SEKVANT OF SATAN. 


183 


Three weeks [later, on the first of November, 1879, at 
the Church of Santa Maria, the marriage of Dona 
Dolores Garces y Marcella with Count Linska de Castillon 
was celebrated with great pomp. 



That same evening the young couple left for Madrid, 
where a handsome suite of apartments had been prepared 
for them in a house on the Calle del Barquillo, 


184 


ABEBtAOT OF SATAN. 


The first weeks of the honey-moon were delightful. 
Through his wife's relatives Frederick became acquainted 
with all the leaders of society at Madrid. The life of the 
young couple was a whirl of perpetual excitement and 
pleasure; they were invited everywhere and attended court 
receptions, embassy balls, and official entertainments. 
Frederick was very proud of Dolores, and she became every 
day more and more infatuated with her handsome and 
gifted husband. Frederick, who had a love for everything 
beautiful, and who was a born artist, had arranged their 
apartment of the Calle del Barquillo with such exquisite 
taste and elegance that it was the talk of the whole town. 
The luxury displayed in every detail, from the magnificent 
Gobelin tapestries which lined the walls down to the dinner 
services of priceless Sevres and Japanese porcelain, the mar- 
velous toilets which he insisted that his wife should wear, 
and the splendid dinners and entertainments they gave all 
cost a great deal of money, and at the end of the winter 
season Frederick could once more foresee the moment when 
not only his own fortune but also his wife's dowry would 
have vanished. He had been made a member of several 
clubs, and with a view of reimbursing himself for what his 
daily life cost, he began to risk large sums at the card table. 

Six months after his marriage he met with a rather 
serious accident. His horses took fright while he was being 
driven home one morning from witnessing the execution by 
the ^^garrote" of the regicide Francisco Otero, and he was 
flung with such violence to the pavement that his ankle 
was broken. His victoria having been shattered to pieces, 
he was driven to his house by a young stranger who had 
witnessed the catastrophe and had offered his assistance. 
An intimacy soon sprang up between the two, and the 
affection which Frederick displayed toward the stranger, 
whose name was Louis Berard, was one of the only really 
disinterested ones in his life. 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


185 


As soon as Frederick had recovered sufficiently to travel, 
he left Madrid with his wife for a few weeks^ sojourn at 
Biarritz, on the Bay of Biscay. The weather was not yet 
hot enough to be disagreeable, and the sea-breeze proved 
very beneficial to him. The pretty bathing resort, far from 
being deserted at this season of the year, still contained a 
considerable number of English, American, and Kussian 
families who had been wintering there, and the Casino was 
nearly as animated and frequented as in the months of Sep- 
tember and October, which constitute the fashionable 
season of Biarritz. 

One morning Frederick, who could now walk without 
any difficulty, proposed to his wife that they should go for a 
stroll to the Vieux-Port, and they set olf in high spirits, 
taking a path along the shore, which latter is lined here 
with lofty clifPs, in which large and mysterious-looking 
caves have been excavated by the waves. It was a lovely 
day, although the sun was not shining. Both sea and sky 
were of that delicate pearly tint which reminds one of tfie 
inside of a shell; the violets were thick in the hedges, and 
the yellow blossoms of the butterwort were flung like so 
many gold pieces over the brown furrows of the fields. Far 
below them the sea was full of life; market boats and fishing 
boats, skiffs and canoes of all kinds, with striped sails, 
were crossing each other on its surface. There were lovely 
white wreaths of mist to the southward, airy and suggestive 
as the vail of a bride, and the silver-shining wings of a score 
of white sea-gulls dipped now and again in the hollows of 
the lazy wavelets. The air was full of the intense perfume 
of the trees, which were starred all over with their white and 
pink blossoms. In the distance the beautiful coast of 
Spain stretched away into endless realms of sparkling, 
though subdued, light, and the lofty range of the Pyrenees 
rose blue and snow-crowned behind the fairy shore of this 
enchanted paradise. 


186 


A SEBVANT OF SATAN. 


Frederick and Dolores walked brisky along arm in arm. 
The path was narrow and there was just room for two people 
to pass between the precipice and the tall hawthorn hedges 
intermingled with bowlders of fallen rocks, from between 
which here and again there rose great stone pines, relics of 
those wild pine woods which, before the modern culture had 
appeared on the scene with ax and spade, had doubtless 
covered the whole of the table land. 

Suddenly at a sharp curve of the path they came face to 
face with a lady and gentleman who were approaching from 
the opposite direction. The lady was young and rather 
good-looking; the gentleman was old, and his hair and mus- 
tache were snow-white, but his erect bearing and still firm 
step belied his age. He was a tall, aristocratic-looking man, 
with pierqing blue eyes, and gave one the impression of 
being an officer in plain clothes. In the button-hole of his 
light gray frock-coat was the rosette of the Grand Cross of 
the Legion of Honor. Frederick pulled Dolores on one 
side to make room for the strangers, but as he did so he be- 
came pale to the very lips. Involuntarily he bared his head 
and made a rapid movement toward the old gentleman. 
But he was met by so haughty a gaze that he lowered his 
eyes and, forgetting the astonished Dolores, he walked 
quickly on. He had recognized his father. General Count 
von Waldberg, from whom he had parted under such pain- 
ful circumstance eleven years before. 


A SEEVANT OF SATAN. 


187 




CHAPTEE XXIII. 

REACHING THE CLIMAX. 

From this time forth Frederick commenced to go, from 
a moral standpoint, more and more down hill. On returning 
to Madrid he lived fast and recklessly, neglecting Dolores and 
spending his nights in gambling-hells, where he lost piles of 
money. On several occasions he was forced to appeal to his 
father-in-law to pay his debts of honor. The old gentleman 
came to his rescue without a murmur, his intense love for 
his daughter preventing him from using harsh words 
toward the husband whom she still continued to adore, not- 
withstanding the ever-increasing neglect with which he 
treated her. It is true that Dolores, having ceased going 
much into society, did not hear about the numerous suc- 
cesses of her lord among the demi-monde, but his once 
courteous and deferential behavior to her had now given 
place to continual irritability, and to never-ending quarrels 
about money and other domestic matters. 

At last the climax came. Frederick, after a particularly 
unlucky week, during which he had sustained heavier losses 
than ever, finding it impossible to obtain the sum which he 
urgently required, actually went so far as to forge hisfather- 
in-law^s name for the amount of 25,000 francs. Don Garces 
y Marcilla, giving way to the entreaties of his daughter, 
who threw herself at his feet, paid the amount and saved 
Frederick from prison and disgrace; but he declared to 
Dolores that if she did not leave her husband and return to 
the shelter of his house he would disown her and never see 
her again. There was a terrible scene; but Dolores was 
immovable, and refused to abandon the man she loved, al- 


188 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


though she could no longer either reaflect or esteem him. 
Her father, who was a violent man, drove her from the 
home of her childhood, and warned her if she ever dared to 
cross his threshold again he would have her turned away by 
his servants. 

The situation had now become a truly desperate one. 
Frederick sold his horses and carriages, his furniture, and 
valuable bric-a-brac — yes, even his wife^s jewels and costly 
dresses, and moved with her to a small house in the out- 
skirts of Madrid. Unknown to her, however, he hired a 
suite of rooms in a fashionable street, and, going into part- 
nership with two disreputable adventurers, he started a 
private gambling hell. 

Poor Dolores! her days of happiness were over. She was 
now always alone in the dingy little house m the suburbs. 
Weeping and privations were fast robbing her of her beauty, 
and Frederick, whenever he looked at her, which was 
seldom, had the cruelty to taunt her with what he called 

her washed-out appearances^ He bitterly complained of 
having married a woman who was of no earthly use to 
him. 

Had yon but known how to play your cards, he would 
often say to her, ^^you might have avoided the quarrel with 
your infernal old idiot of a father. He is soft enough, in 
all conscience, when one knows how to handle him. But, 
no; you must needs go into heroics and get yourself kicked 
out of the house for your pains. Upon my word, Dolores, 
you are worse than a fool. Without you I would never 
have come down in the world iike this.^^ 

The poor woman, terrified by the violence of her hus- 
band, who was fast losing his former refinement and dis- 
tinction, and was becoming downright brutal, could only 
cry and sob, imploring her dear ^^Eric^^ to take pity on 
her. But her tears only seemed to exasperate him more, 
and as lately his gambling saloon, thanks to his partners. 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


189 


who were nothing hut vulgar sharpers, had got into bad re- 
pute with the jetinesse doree, who cautiously avoided going 
there, he one fine morning gave the slip to his army of 
creditors, and, abandoning Dolores without a cent of money, 
started alone for Paris. 

The unfortunate woman, when she discovered that she 
had been deserted, nearly went out of her mind with grief 
and despair. But nothing could destroy her love for Fred- 
erick, and she resolved to discover his hiding-place and to 
entreat him to let her live with him, if only as his servant. 

Women are singularly illogical. The whole world may 
be against a man, but the woman who loves him will stand 
boldly forward as his champion. No matter how vile a man 
may be, if a woman loves him she exalts him to the rank of 
a demi-god and refuses to see the clay feet of her idol. 
When he is forsaken by all, she still clings to him. When 
all others frown, she still smiles on him, and when he dies, 
she adores and reverences his memory as that of a martyr of 
circumstances. God help the man who in time of trouble 
has not a true and loving woman to stand by his side and 
help him through lifers bitter struggle! 

However, Dolores, being penniless, had to leave her little 
house and to seek refuge at the lodgings of her old nurse, 
Avho lived in a narrow, dark street in the slums of Madrid. 
Old Carmen loved her, and, although the good woman was 
poor herself (her husband having, before he dejDarted from 
this life, managed to drink up every penny), she took the 
unfortunate Dolores in and tended her through a violent 
fit of illness, brought on by sorrow and privation. 

Dolores^ home was now in a dark lane which glowed like 
a furnace during the hot months of the Spanish summer. 
She tried to earn some money by doing a little plain needle- 
work, *but often as she sat by the open casement of the small 
window which looked out into a dirty, ill-smelling alley, 
where ragged children played all day long in the dried-up 


190 


A SEEVANT OF SATAN. 


gutter, she would let her head fall on the greasy window- 
sill and weep scalding tears of pain and regret. Far hap- 
pier were the victims whom Frederick had dispatched from 
this world than this broken-hearted creature whose life he 
had shattered and ruined. 

In the middle of 1883 Frederick arrived in Paris, and 
continued to live there in the same reckless and dissipated 
fashion. He lost all the little money he had brought with 
him from Spain, and sank lower and lower, cheating at 
cards, swindling hotel and lodging-house keepers, and grad- 
ually rolling to the very bottom of the social scale. More 
than once he went to bed without a dinner, and in one word 
he now belonged to the very lowest class of adventurers. 
Driven by the pangs of hunger and misery, he even went 
so far as to blackmail several ladies of high rank and posi- 
tion, but somehow or other always managed to escape the 
vigilant eye of the French police. 

One night, having made a few napoleons at baccarat, he 
bought seats at the Folies-Bergeres, and after a scanty 
dinner at a cheap restaurant he proceeded thither accom- 
panied by the woman who was then living with him, a 
gaudily dressed, red-haired, and brazen-faced creature, who 
was well known on the outer boulevards. 

During a pause in the performance the well-assorted 
couple repaired to the foyer, where they began to pace up 
and down, arm in arm, among the crowd of habitues, where 
here and there a stranger was noticeable who had come to 
see the fun. 

Suddenly Frederick and his companion found themselves 
face to face with a lady and gentleman who were just about 
to leave the place. As Frederick caught sight of the lady 
he unconsciously dropped his companion's arm and bowed 
low. Lady Margaret, for it was she, looked at him in 
haughty surprise, then turned to her husband as if to com- 
plain of this piece of insolence. 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


191 


exclaimed the latter in English^ and in a very 
audible tone of voice, I told you what you would expose 
yourself to if you came here. You see. Pearl, that^s what 
comes of always insisting on visiting the most extraordinary 
places.-’' 

That night, for the first time in his life, Frederick von 
Waldberg got drunk; the words of the young Englishman 
had shown him, more than anything else, to what depths 
he had sunk. Lady Margaret, the girl whom he had once 
fancied loved him, had not even recognized, in the degraded 
individual he had now become, the man who had aspired to 
her hand. Crimsoning to the very roots of his hair, he left 
the red-haired cocotte standing in the middle of the fioor, di- 
rected his steps towards the luvette, and, ordering a demi- 
setier (about half a pint) of brandy to be served him, 
drained it at a gulp. 

One evening, in the month of January, 1885, Frederick, 
who beyond the clothes on his back now possessed nothing 
but a well-worn suit of evening dress and a few shirts, 
happened to be strolling down the Champs Elysees, when 
suddenly his attention was attracted by sounds of a violent 
altercation. On approaching the spot whence they pro- 
ceeded he found a middle-aged man, manifestly a foreigner, 
who was undergoing severe treatment at the hands of a 
couple of students from the Quartier Latin. ^ The stranger 
was accompanied by a tall and exceedingly handsome 
blonde. The students, with the impudence peculiar to 
their class, had ventured on some remarks of a tender and 
even indiscreet nature to the lady, whose escort had been 
quick to resent the insult. The students, however, were 
decidedly getting the best of the scuffle when Frederick ap- 
peared on the scene. Not even the life of dissipation and 
debauchery into which he had allowed himself to sink had 
been able to diminish the power of his muscular arms. 
Dashing his fist into the face of the taller of the two stu- 


192 


A SEEVANT OF SATAN. 


dents, he sent him sprawling on the ground at some 
'distance, on seeing which the other prudently took to his 
heels. Then bending down Frederick picked up the little 
man^s hat and returned it to him, at the same time express- 
ing the hope that he had escaped without any serious 
damage. The stranger was most profuse in his expressions 
of gratitude, in which the lady cordially joined, and insisted 
that Frederick should accompany them to take supper at 
the Cafe Americain.^"^ Nothing loth, Frederick acqui- 
esced, and it was almost daylight before they finally sep- 
arated. 

Frederick found that his new acquaintance was an 
American, whose name is equally well known in the highest 
social circles both of New York and New Orleans, and 
whose mature age and sedate appearance does not prevent 
him from burning the candle at both ends, in Europe as 
well as in the States. The lady by whom he was accom- 
panied was a Mine. Varlay, who had deserted her husband 
some three months previous to this date, and had adopted 
the nom de guerre of Eugenie Forestier. During the 
course of the supper the fair Eugenie cast several admiring 
glances at the man who had displayed such muscular power 
in effecting their deliverance, and Frederick quickly per- 
ceived that he had made an impression upon her. Before 
they parted a mutual interchange of addresses took place, 
and arrangements were made for a theater party to take 
place some days later. 

On the following afternoon Frederick called on Mme. 
Forestier, who soon became deeply infatuated with him. 
Indeed, from that time forth Frederick may be said to have 
practically lived at her expense — or rather at that of her 
American lover. When, however, in the month of April 
the latter took his departure for the IJnited States, the finances 
of the lady underwent a disastrous change. The drafts re- 
ceived from New York and Newport were few and far be- 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


193 


tween, and in course of time Eugenie found it necessary to 
dispose of her jewels, and even of her fine laces and dresses, 
in order to keep the wolf from the door. 

It was during this period of penury that Frederick spent 
much of his time in dictating to Eugenie letters to her 
American friend, in which terms of endearment and devo- 
tion were most artistically blended with requests for money. 
Clever as were these compositions, they ended by dispelling 
any feelings of affection which might have existed on the 
part of her ex-lover, and in the month of October he sent 
her from IN’ew Orleans a draft on a bank at Boulogne-sur- 
Mer for a couple of thousand francs, announcing to her at 
the same time that it would be impossible for him to make 
any further remittances. Within a few weeks the money 
was spent, and in the month of January, 1886, almost every 
article of any value possessed by Eugenie or by Frederick 
had found its way to the moyit-de-piete (pawnshop). 

Frederick's companion during most of this time was a 
Spaniard of the name of Ybanez, his accomplice in many 
of his schemes for raising the wind by all kinds of question- 
able means. One night about the 15th or 16th of January, 
1886, Ybanez came to Frederick and informed him that an 
Italian friend of his had a certain number of jewels in his 
possession which he (Ybanez) believed to be the proceeds of 
a robbery, and which his friend the Italian was anxious to 
get rid of on the sly. Ybanez added that as he himself had 
been afraid to take any action in the matter, and that as 
his friend had fully realized the danger of disposing of the 
jewels at Paris, he had advised him to sell them either at 
Marseilles, Bordeaux, or some other large provincial town 
at a distance from the metropolis. 

^^Well, where has he finally decided to take them to 
inquired Frederick, quickly. 

To Marseilles,^^ replied Yabanez, 

When is he going to start 


194 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


the rapide (limited express) of to-night/^ 

The two men looked sharply at one another for a few 
seconds. They had understood each other. 

Negligently and without apparent intention Ybanez con- 
tinued to speak of his Italian friend, and casually gave 
Frederick a full and minute description of his personal ap- 
pearance. 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


195 


CHAPTEE XXIV. 

HIS SINS FOUND HIM OUT. 

That same evening at the Gare de Lyons, a minute before 
the train started out of the station, a man dressed in a gray 
overcoat and wearing a soft felt traveling hat was hustled 
by the conductor into a coupe which until then had been 
tenanted by one solitary traveler, A shade of annoyance 
passed over the face of the latter as the door opened. It 
was evident that he had hoped to remain in undisturbed 
possession of the compartment. But he soon regained his 
equanimity. For from the fussy manner in which the in- 
truder collected and arranged in the netting his impedi- 
ments, among which was a lunch-basket, he surmised that 
he had to deal with a 'petit bourgeois, probably a small shop- 
keeper, who was totally unaccustomed to travel any farther 
than Bougival or Asnieres. 

A conversation quickly sprang up between the two, and 
the man in gray displayed the greatest interest and un- 
feigned astonishment at the recital of his companion's ad- 
ventures in foreign lands, and especially in Egypt and the 
Soudan. In response to a further inquiry, the latter ex- 
plained that his knowledge of those countries was due to 
the fact of his having held a high position on the staff of 
General Lord Wolseley during the Nile expedition of 1884. 
for the rescue of Gordon. 

In return for these confidences the man in gray stated that 
he was a wholesale grocer in the Faubourg Montmartre, and 
that he was on his way to visit a married sister who was 
established at Avignon. He added confidentially that he 


196 


A SERVANT OF SATAN, 


had never in his life been farther away from Paris than F on 
tainebleau. 

Shortly after they passed Melun the alleged grocer opened 
his lunch-basket and began to feast on some cold chicken, 
wine, and a box of sardines, which probably came from his 
shop in the Faubourg Montmartre. Suddenly he appeared 
to remember the fact that his fellow-traveler might possibly 
be hungry, too, and rather shyly asked if monsieur would 
do him the honor of joining him in his repast. This invita- 
tion was readily accepted, and a bottle of excellent Bur- 
gundy followed by a dram of old cognac, put the two men 
in such good humor that they began to grow more and more 
confidential. 

The man in gray imparted to his companion all kinds of 
little tricks in the grocery trade, such as mingling sand 
with brown sugar, oleomargarine with fresh table butter, 
and he even acknowledged, to the great amusement of the 
other, that he had a Japanese in his employ to carefully 
open the boxes of prime tea received from China and Japan, 
who after having mixed the contents with some tea of very 
inf erior quality, recanted them in such an adept manner 
that it was impossible for the retail grocers to detect the fact 
that they had ever been opened or their contents adulterated. 

On the other hand Lord Wolseley^s alleged staff officer 
horrified his grocer friend by a detailed description of the 
Soudanese method of killing their enemies, namely, by a 
swift, sweeping stroke across the throat with an exceedingly 
sharp knife, and which is invariably yielded from behind', 
so that the slayer escapes being deluged by the blood of his 
victim. 

When one has the knack, added he, with a significant 
sweep of his hand, one can almost sever the head with 
such a stroke.-^^ 

Meanwhile both of the men had been smoking some ex- 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


197 


ceedingly fine Manilla cheroots, which it is well known are 
slightly washed with opium, and which the grocer had 
offered to his new acquaintance. By and by they both 
dropped off into a deep sleep, the slumbers of the alleged 
staff officer being far more heavy than those of his compan- 
ion, as it was easy to perceive by his stertorous breathing. 
Indeed, it almost sounded as if he was under the influence 
of some particularly strong narcotic. 

Suddenly the grocer stealthily opened his eyes, and, hav- 
ing assured himself that his fellow-traveler was asleep, pro- 
ceeded to examine the contents not only of his pockets but 
also of his valise. An exclamation of satisfaction burst from 
his lips as he found the objects of his search, which, as he 
held them up to the dim light of the lamp, it was easy to 
perceive consisted of valuable jewelry. 

As he raised his face toward the lamp for the purpose of 
examining his booty his false beard fell off and revealed the 
features of Frederick von Waldberg. 

The sleeping man who had been drugged both by means 
of the brandy and of the cigar which had been offered to 
him was Pranzini, who over a year later was guillotined for 
the murder of a demi-mondaine named Marie Regnault, who, 
together with her maid and the latteFs child, were found 
in her apartment of the Rue Montaigne, slain in identically 
the same fashion in which Marie Aguetant had been killed 
two days previous to PranzinPs and Frederick's departure 
together from Paris. All four victims had been murdered 
with the same sweeping backward stroke of the knife so 
graphically described by Pranzini to the alleged grocer. 

When the train steamed into Dijon, Frederick gathered 
up all his belongings and got out. 

Pranzini did not awake till after leaving Arignon, and 
only discovered after his arrival in Marseilles that he had 
been robbed. Of course, under the circumstances, he was 


198 


A SEBVANT OF SATAN. 


unable to apply to the police for assistance, for these jewels 
were those stolen from Marie Aguetant, whom he, Pranzini, 
had killed, but for whose murder Prado suffered death. 

Frederick, after leaving Dijon, made his way across 
country to Bordeaux, and from thence to Madrid, where he 
pawned the jewels, with the help of a woman of the name of 
Ximenes. 

It was mainly on the evidence adduced by this very 
woman, to the effect that the jewels in question had been 
pawned by Linska de Castillon, alias Prado (the name 
which he gave on his arrest), that he was condemned for 
the murder of Marie Aguetant, which he had not commit- 
ted, but of which Pranzini alone was guilty. 

Pranzini always bore a grudge against Vhomme en gris 
(the man in the gray coat), whose name he did not know, 
but whom he accused of having been his accomplice in the 
triple murder of the Eue Montaigne. 

Frederick, on the other hand, when the trial of Pranzini 
took place, recognized in the features of the prisoner those 
of his traveling companion from whom he had stolen the 
jewels subsequently identified as those of Marie Aguetant. 

For obvious reasons he remained silent at the time. 

But why did he not speak when, later on, his ow^ life 
was at stake? The only explanation of this mysterious 
silence is to be found in the last lines of the confession 
which he intrusted to Louis Berard. They are, word for 
word, as follows: 

I know that I yet could save myself. Why should I 
not say the truth, that Pranzini, the assassin of Marie 
Regnault, was also the slayer of Marie Aguetant, of whose 
murder I am unjustly accused! My reason for remaining 
silent and for refusing to sign my recours en grace (appeal 
for mercy) is that I am heartily sick of life. I am bound, 
in any case, to be condemned to penal servitude for robbery; 
a second time I would not escape from Noumea. My life is 


A SERVANT OF SATAN. 


199 


destroyed; all my ambitions are dead — I have nothing more 
to live for in this world. I am happy to leave it. The 
guillotine, toward which I am going, is a just retribution 
for other crimes. My sins have found me out. 

(Signed) Count Frederick yon Waldbero.^^ 

Such is the extraordinary history of the man who was 
guillotined on the 4th of December, 1888, under the alias 
of Prado, and who, having escaped punishment for the 
innumerable atrocities he had committed, finally suffered 
death for a crime of which he was innocent. 

Louis Berard. 


[the end.] 


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